Gauguin subjects I see in paintings (9)
I believe the answer is:
tahitians
'gauguin subjects' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to communication as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'i see in paintings' is the wordplay.
'i see' becomes 'ah' (exclamation used to indicate understanding).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'paintings' becomes 'titians' (paintings by Titian).
'ah' placed within 'titians' is 'TAHITIANS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tahitians that I've seen before include "race on island" , "Islanders in the 1 ac" , "some painted by Gauguin" , "Polynesian types" , "some 16 [ISLANDER] s" .)