Presented by the Queensland Art Gallery in association with the ENERGEX Brisbane Festival 2000
Exhibition dates: 30 September – 12 November 2000 | Website: www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/fortitude
| Alick Tipoti "My art is built on, and held together by, traditional Torres Strait designs, based on legends of the past." Alick Tipoti was born in 1975 on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. He has completed an Associate Diploma of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE. Tipoti has also received a Bachelor of Visual Art (Printmaking) from the Canberra Institute of Art, Australian National University. In 1998 Tipoti was awarded the Lin Onus Youth Prize in the fourth National Indigenous Heritage Art Awards for his linoprint, Aralpaia ar Zenikula. Artwork
Artist statement I get my inspiration from the ancient artefacts of the Torres Strait Islands, which I have had the opportunity to see in universities and museums, and from the traditional stories handed down and recorded by my father and the recognised elders of the Torres Strait. My art is built on, and held together by, traditional Torres Strait designs, based on legends of the past. Recognition of the Torres Strait is expressed and given by the stories depicted in my art. I feel printmaking to be the best method to obtain the traditional Torres Strait feel. Images and figures of my forefathers and artefacts are shown in my work, as well as the many land and sea creatures that exist in the Torres Strait. Stories ALI (name of warrior) Ali was an only child, having no father. His mother was his only family in the village. The other village people left fearing a plague had spread through the village, leaving only Ali and his mother. At manhood Ali felt his time had come to visit the people who once lived in the same village with him. During his plight to seek out his people, he came to a village where he met and fell in love with the head Chief’s daughter. After courtship, they married and had three children during which time Ali forgot about the wellbeing of his mother. Years had passed when he remembered the mother he had left behind. He told his wife of his plans to return, she persuaded him that she and the children would go with him. Ali did not tell his wife that his mother was the only one in the village. On nearing the village Ali saw his mother old and frail standing in water of about waist high. His wife asked who is that ugly old thing in the water. Insulted by his wife’s words, they turned around never to return. Ali left his mother alone in the village to die. On their return trip to his wife’s village, the sea got choppy, the wind got fierce overturning the canoe. Ali, his wife and his children perished at sea. KOBUPA THOERAPIESE (a phrase spoken in Kala Kawaw Ya - language of the top Western Islands - which means preparing for war) The main component in this print is a Saibai Island warrior in a dancing posture which Saibai Island warriors are well recognised for. This print is based on a traditional Saibai Island introduction song. The song is about the legend of a pet crocodile called Aka (Grandmother). As the artist of this work, I ask you the viewer to visually outline the Aka who is blended into the traditional Torres Strait designs that holds this print of this story together. Selected bibliography The Fourth National Indigenous Heritage Art Awards 1998 [exhibition catalogue], Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra, 1998. Mosby, Tom and Robinson, Brian, Illan Pasin (This is our way): Torres Strait Art [exhibition catalogue], Cairns Regional Gallery, Cairns, 1998. Muecke, Marina, ‘Artists of North Queensland: Alick Tipoti’, Cairns Post, 27 June 1995, p. 39. Win-Nemou Sandra, Maillot, ‘Blood brothers’, Art Asia Pacific, No. 14, 1997, pp. 32–33. Group exhibitions 1999 ‘Illan Pasin (This is our way): Torres Strait Art’, Cairns Regional Gallery, Cairns; touring 1999–2000 Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville; University of Melbourne Gallery, Melbourne; Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide; Australian Contemporary Craft Centre, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 1998 ‘The Fourth National Indigenous Heritage Art Award 1998’, Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra. 1996 ‘Art ou Artifice? (Art or Artifice)’, Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Noumea, New Caledonia. |
