Naomi Hobson’s imagination has its genesis in Coen, her hometown in far northern Queensland. Currently, the Southern Kaantju and Umpila artist is videoing in from her residence in Cairns, but the nature of her work, so closely connected to her heart, means she’s never far from her birthplace – that rural town, which sits on Australia’s right tip and spears the Coral Sea. “I’m in Cairns, but I’m still home,” Hobson says, glancing briefly out her window. “When I paint, it appears. My art connects me to the Cape.”
Hobson is one of the most prolific and multidisciplinary First Nations artists working today; her ceramics, paintings, used for the brand’s holiday-edition packaging and storefronts and later acquired by the NGV. Now her latest project – a solo exhibition of her photography series at Paddington’s Cement Fondu gallery – brings her photographs to Sydney for the first time.
