Page 67 - Tropic Magazine Issue 17

TROPIC • ART

Packed program
Cairns Art Gallery kickstarts 2019 with a
stunning array of exhibitions from local and
international artists.

ELIZABETH HUNTER
DECADENCE
8 March – 21 May QUEEN’S LAND
Elizabeth Hunter is a Cairns-based artist whose BLAK PORTRAITURE
exhibition, Decadence, offers an imaginative Late 19th century to present
analysis of a world the artist acknowledges might 17 May – 11 August 2019
closely align with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New Late 19th century to the present is an
World. Yet her works also offer a positive narrative immersive exploration of how black
informed by an acute empathy and compassion for identity in Queensland has been
human life, and the many foibles and inadequacies defined and visually represented
that make us who we are.
through portraiture by both Indigenous
and non-Indigenous artists.
The relationships between personal,
cultural and national identity are
VINCENT BABIA examined in relation to archival
KOEY BUWAI MAB: and contemporary portrait images,
Migration from Saibai Island to Cape York including works by black artists
26 Apr – 9 Jun 2019 representing themselves as they
The story of a voluntary mass migration from Saibai Island in the Torres want to be seen.
Strait, to the mainland after World War II, is explored in a new exhibition of QUEEN’S LAND: BLAK PORTRAITURE:
sculptures and prints by Vincent Babia. The artist’s family is one of many that Presented in partnership with Cairns
permanently relocated from Saibai to safer ground at the tip of Cape York, Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF). This project
after a series of destructive king tides in the 1940s. has been assisted by the Australian
Government’s Visions of Australia program
and is supported by The John Villers Trust.

MORE: cairnsartgallery.com.au

IMAGE TOP LEFT IMAGE TOP RIGHT
Elizabeth HUNTER Danie MELLOR
Playing for keeps 2018 A gaze still dark (a black
etching portrait of intimacy) 2019
100 x 50 cm 178 x 117.5 cm
Courtesy of the artist wax pastel, wash with oil
pigment, watercolour and
IMAGE LEFT pencil on paper
Vincent BABIA Courtesy of the artist
Legend drum of Wakenab and Jan Murphy Gallery,
2017 Brisbane
wood, seed pod, goanna Photography courtesy
skin, cane, Mim Stirling
feather, shark tooth
55 x 140 x 52 cmCairns Art
Gallery Collection
Purchased Cairns Art
Gallery Foundation, 2018

67 • tropicnow.com.au