“Even in a work that you think is just a nice painting, he is still trying to pass on important cultural information.”
— PEGGY KASABAD LANE
For self-taught Torres Strait Islands artist Segar Passi, painting the luxuriously colourful scenery around him is not only about creating something beautiful, it’s also an important component of cultural legacy. Everything in his detailed paintings is implicitly intended to be a record of knowledge for future generations.
Passi’s extraordinary powers of recall are used to make his works, rather or using photographs as a reference. As Cairns Art Gallery director Andrea May Churcher observes in the catalogue for Passi’s show at the gallery, Passi’s ability to paint from memory is remarkable, “recalling details with absolute accuracy based on acute observational skills”. His paintings are also entrancingly rich in colour. Visitors to this retrospective, spanning Passi’s long career beginning in the 1960s, may find themselves instantly seduced by the way his bright palette saturates the senses.
