Larry Santana, born in Ramu Valley, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

, in 1962, is a Papua New Guinean painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

Larry's original surname was 'Mike' i.e. Larry Mike and he studied under that name at the Goroka School of Art and Design in 1979. One of his painting tutors at that time was New Zealander Roger Smith. Another was Willi Stevens, who designed the Papua New Guinean currency.

Santana's paintings often depicts topics related to modernity

Modernity

Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...

, tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

 and social alienation

Social alienation

The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...

. His 1988 self-portrait was entitled Struggle and Pain at the Six Mile Dump.

Among his other works, Santana was commissioned to embellish Port Moresby Airport. In 1996, he painted the murals of the ANZAC Memorial in Port Moresby

Port Moresby

Port Moresby , or Pot Mosbi in Tok Pisin, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea . It is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the southeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, which made it a prime objective for conquest by the Imperial Japanese forces during 1942–43...

, where he currently lives. His work has been displayed in international exhibitions in Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

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Santana's art was featured on the cover of the eighteenth edition of The Contemporary Pacific

The Contemporary Pacific

The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs is an academic journal covering a wide range of disciplines with the aim of providing comprehensive coverage of contemporary developments in the entire Pacific Islands region, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia...

, in autumn 2006.