Amako Art Gallery’s (AAG) founder, Mr. Warren Veyane, is a persevering Artist who throughout his career fought for the implementation of a Policy for the rights to Art to be recognized nationally and internationally for Papua New Guinea (PNG) Artists.
Veyane is 33 years of age and comes from a mixed parentage of Eastern Highlands (EHP) and Milne Bay Provinces and was an Art student for three years at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) School of Arts in 2010 before leaving school to take care of his siblings.
“Due to the passing of both my parents, I was forced to withdraw from school and open a studio to help sustain my younger siblings.”
With his passion for Art, he founded the Amako Art Gallery (AAG) home studio located in June Valley (JV) Port Moresby and created a Facebook page to showcase and help sell the inspiring artists artwork in 2017.
“I wanted a special name for my studio, and I couldn’t use Warren because there were already artists with that name, so I chose to use my grandfather’s name.”
“Amako in Henganofi language means warrior and it represents my heart and how I feel about Art in PNG.”
AAG, according to Veyane, creates a platform for struggling artists to showcase and sell their paintings and offers exposure by participating in Art exhibitions and the arts theatre through visual arts and musical arts. Veyane added that he had taught free art classes over a three-month period on the basic principles of visual art to help the young artists, who also shared similar interest.
“In 2018 when I started the classes, there was a total of 167 students and most of them were in primary school. Most of these students are now in secondary school and they are the top artists in their classes.”
Warren’s journey started when a couple from Switzerland found interest in his illustrating skills and decided to hire him to do illustrations for their books, as they also funded libraries and computer labs.
“These international associates expressed the potential for artists in the world and I was hooked at that point. However, this was impossible without the Right for Art Policy in place from the government.”
“Without the Right for Art Policy in place, I barely recovered an adequate fee from our business agreement.”
Veyane further added that the inexperience to international associates became an obsessive motivation to seek out the Policy to be implemented for local artists in PNG to protect their gifts.
Mr. Veyane believes that the experience outside of school brought challenges and also brought him opportunities to help identify his passion and goals in life.
Meanwhile, he set out to implement the Rights to Art policy, working closely with the National Capital District and the National Parliament and was fortunate to be a part of the first Art Exhibition after 50 years, back then in 2019.
That exhibition was hosted at the NCD Governor’s Office, bringing government attention to the primary matter.