Sylvester Bulesa

Born in 1961 in Lewawa Village, central Pentecost, Sylvester is a long-term resident of Vila.

He was living in Santo when his sister informed him that her European employer was looking for someone to go to Australia to learn to make pottery. He volunteered, and at the end of 1979 left to study ceramics for eighteen months at Hawkesbourne College in Melbourne.

His first exhibition upon his return to Vanuatu in 1981, held in the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, was one of the first individual exhibitions by a ni-Vanuatu contemporary artist. Sylvester has subsequently exhibited another seven times either individually or with one or two others, and in addition has participated in all of the annual Nawita Association exhibitions.

Married with two children, Sylvester now works as the Artist-in-Residence at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, where his latest exhibition was staged in July 1995 to coincide with the 15th anniversary of Independence. His pottery, which is both practical and aesthetic and inspired entirely from local and indigenous themes, is in high demand in Port Vila.

Sylvester has run ceramics classes at the Vila branch of the University of the South Pacific and currently tutors in ceramics craft at the Ecole Colardeau.