new works by samuel tupou
Sam Tupou is one of the most exciting young artists to come out of Far North Queensland in recent years. While Rosella Namok may be stealing the national limelight at present, there is a coterie of Cairns-based artists including Tupou, Charles Street, Daniel Wallwork and Simon Poole who have shaken up the local scene in recent years as members of The Upholstery, Cairns’ self-proclaimed contemporary art collective. These artists showcased their work in The Humid Condition at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane last year, while Tupou and Street are to hold a much-anticipated joint exhibition at the Cairns Regional Gallery in mid-2006.
‘New Tapa’ is Tupou’s third solo show in Cairns in as many years, which is indicative of his local reputation, whilst numerous commissions have made his work a familiar feature around town. Credit must go to Tupou for his commercial nous, in that he embraces the free market mechanisms that at the same time he parodies in his work, and in so doing holds up a self-critical mirror to the unashamedly dollar-driven regional tourist industry.
My first encounter with Tupou’s work was in a group exhibition FNQ Souvenir at KickArts in mid-2004, in which the artist exhibited T-shirt (2003), a work comprising eighteen child-sized chesty bonds t-shirts, made of perspex and screenprinted with images of crocodiles, coral reefs, and bikini-clad babes. What I found so captivating about this composite piece was that it seemed to capture the ‘essence’ (and I use this term with a degree of circumspection) of Far North Queensland (or at least how it is perceived in the southern states). Each t-shirt could be purchased as an individual item, so you could