Skip to main content

The Blooms Continue to Flourish

Brian Robinson, The Blooms Continue to Flourish, 2015
Collection of Cairns Art Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Brian Robinson

The Blooms Continue to Flourish 2015

Custom-printed linen
48.9 x 13.9cm

About the Work

Brian Robinson’s work communicates the variety of flowers produced to create a spectacle of colour across the Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait) region. The deep knowledge held by sea-faring cultures of Zenadth Kes Islanders has guided them on the appropriate times to nurture, gather, or to avoid food plants and animals in accordance with cultural protocols. As Robinson notes, seasonal horticulture is determined by the “movement of stars, constellations, tidal patterns and migration of birds and sea creatures”, and accompanied by song and fertility rituals to ensure an abundance of edible food.

The Islanders’ seasonal calendar includes four distinct phases:

  1. Kuki (north-west winds) during the wet monsoon season between January and April
  2. Sager (south-east winds), often referred to as ‘trade winds’ that brought Macassar fleets, which occur in the drier months of May through December
  3. Zey (southerly winds), which deliver strong random winds throughout the year
  4. Naygay (northerly winds), which bring the most humid conditions from October to December.

About the Artist

Raised on Waiben (Thursday Island), Brian Robinson has become a successful multidisciplinary artist who explores traditional customs associated with Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait) Islanders. Brian is an accomplished curator and artist, with works held in major national and international collections. Since 1997, his experiments with diverse mediums have produced exceptional contemporary interpretations of traditional practices informed by his inherited knowledge. He is therefore a strong advocate for the retention of cultural knowledge and embraces opportunities to express ancestral stories through large scale public art sculptures juxtaposed against a backdrop of contemporary life. Brian has a number of permanent installations along the foreshore of the Cairns Esplanade. He is currently developing an impressive, elongated sculpture titled Floriate for the new Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, to convey connection to Country. The ornamental bronze work will serve as a permanent reminder for the long history of ceremony and storytelling at that location for thousands of years.