Page 58 - Tropic Magazine Issue 38

TROPIC • ART

Must-see

EXHIBITIONS
Extraordinary fashion prints
and exquisite Melanesian
paintings are being celebrated
at Cairns Art Gallery.
1
Two brilliant but very different
exhibitions are delighting visitors to
Cairns Art Gallery over the next couple of As a young schoolboy, he showed an
early ability to draw, and classmates
months. To mark the recent 80th birthday would often ask him to complete their
of Meriam Mir artist Segar Passi, the art assignments. His family knew he
Gallery is presenting his second solo was gifted, but commercially made
exhibition Segar Passi: Meriba Ged A Gur
(Our Land and Sea). It’s been curated by art materials were not available on the
islands in the 1940s and 50s. Undaunted,
Gallery Assistant Curator, Peggy Kasabad Segar applied his determination and
Lane, who is also from the Torres Strait ingenuity by crushing different coloured
and brings a particular depth and stones and mixing them with seawater
knowledge to this important artist’s
massive body of work. to make pigments. Using clamshells,
he would take his pigments to large flat
Born in 1942, Passi has dedicated his life rocks that he would paint on, using dried
to art and the passing on of knowledge, pandanus as paint brushes. Later he
traditional practices, and ancestral stories began to use watercolour paints that his
to future generations.
mother bought him, and he would sit
and paint for hours, capturing detailed
images of birds, fish and flowers, as
well as comic book heroes and scenes of
everyday life on the island.
In 1967, the appearance of Margaret
Lawrie on Mer changed Passi’s life 2
forever. Lawrie was a young teacher
commissioned by the Queensland
Government to report on the health needs of more than 135 works comprising a
of Indigenous communities in Cape large number of exquisitely detailed
York and the Torres Strait. She became watercolours, together with several pencil
fascinated with the culture of the region. drawings, and portraits of children.
When local people invited her to record These, and other drawings by Islander
their stories and genealogies so that they artists, were reproduced in Myths and
would not be lost to future generations, Legends of Torres Strait (1970), and the
she used a tape recorder to document children’s book Tales from Torres Strait
them and soon artists on the islands (1972). The original paintings are held
offered to illustrate the stories with in the Margaret Lawrie Collection at
1. Segar Passi
Unity and strength 2012 paintings and drawings. the John Oxley Library, State Library
synthetic polymer paint on canvas of Queensland, and are included in
Purchased with the assistance of the Cairns Regional Gallery Lawrie was struck by the simple beauty
Foundation, 2014 and exquisite detail and accuracy of UNESCO’s Australian Memory of the World
2. Segar Passi
Self portrait Passi’s small watercolour paintings as Register. Segar is the only surviving artist
synthetic polymer paint on canvas well as their ability to impart island from the group commissioned by Lawrie,
51.1 x 40.5cm
Collection of Segar Passi knowledge, law and culture to young and his works in the Lawrie Collection
3. Segar Passi make up the largest and most important
A young Murray Island man in a mask 1990 children on Mer. Lawrie guided Passi to
synthetic polymer paint on canvas create watercolours of Mer’s birds and holding of his art.
Gift of David Everist, 2019
Cairns Art Gallery Collection marine life and the result was a body

58 • Tropic • Issue 38