Post #655368 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Oct 13, 2012 12:35 AM

MOST excellent, indeed! I just could not imagine in what way this Moai would be "polychromed" in a tasteful and fitting manner - among all Tikis, a Moai strikes me as needing to be MONOchrome - but Leroy did it! He again has proven himself as the only living veteran of mid-century Tiki who still has the "secret knowledge" of how to do it like they used to. Palmer looks ancient, with a patina that could be from the 50s or the 1500s.

The old O.A. way of polychroming was the fine art of applying color to the carved artifacts in such a manner that they looked aged. The colors chosen were earthy and washed-out looking, with dirt rubbed into it, not bright and primary. Leroy has used color more liberally in his own art, in a folk art manner, like Mexican or other island tourist art, but for Polynesian pop in the mid-century style, the only way to go is the muted, aged look of primitive art.