Philippinexotica:
A Lost Paradise

PHOTOGRAPHY | PETTER HEGRE       WORDS | KIRK BROMLEY

When Petter Hegre was hired to decorate the Rica Forum Hotel in Stavanger, Norway, the art committee asked for images that would communicate a sense of the exotic.

Boracay Island had long been on his list of suitable locations and he made his way to the Philippines with a desire to experiment with his media while remaining within the art committee's remit.

His search first led him to Wendy, the ideal Hegre Girl with her sense of wonder and Oriental looks, and the two went to work in the palm groves that shade the sparkling lagoons of Boracay.

Along with the traditional shots, Hegre was inspired to create a clothing collection made of ocean materials: octopus, a giant snail and colourful crabs being used to gild Wendy like a rare precious jewel. Hegre even scooped a fish from the shallows and placed it, sucking playfully, on Wendy's nipple.

Trouble awaited him at home, however. The art committee in Stavanger found the exotic images just a little too exotic, and a furious battle between conventional formality and artistic
freedom ensued.

The committee emerged victorious, or so it thought. At the hotel's Grand Opening Gala, there were plenty of wide eyes and red faces as the committee members saw their worst fears before them.

Hegre in secret had hung the forbidden pictures.

But it was artistic freedom that triumphed in the end. The public's reaction to the images was so positive, the officials could do nothing but praise Hegre in their speeches. They had learned three lessons that night - the exotic is never formal, the artist is always right, and there's nothing the crowd likes more than a tit-sucking fish.