Friends of Suai

Tetun Language

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Pencil and crayon drawings by Domi.

Domi (foreground) and Almeida (back) with other kids (checking back to get other names)

When Pat Jessen from the Friends of Suai, put out the word there would be art materials available in the Suai Community Centre every afternoon for local youth to use, about four kids responded. Domi, Almeida and a couple of others whose names I didn’t get. I remember Domi because he came every day. That is Domi’s work in the gallery above. As you can see some of it is copy work and some from his imagination.

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Pencil and crayon drawings by Almeida

I remember Almeida for a few reasons. The first reason is that Alberto one of our friends in Suai told us his nephew had been to Japan as an artist and won a prize. The second is that when we asked Sergio for the names of some artists who might be interested he told us about Almeida and took us to his home where we found it covered with his drawings and paintings. With one that was very similar to a picture I had seen in Sergio’s bedroom/studio. Then, when a group of media workshop students decided to do a story about Suai as an art city they also went to see Almeida. Above are the drawings he did at the Community Centre.

Below is a collection of pencil drawings by the unnamed boys.

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Unsigned drawings

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Portraits of Youth by Sergio (see ‘Portraits of Youth 2000‘ and ‘Portraits 2000‘)

When Pat Jessen wanted artists to paint portraits of the youth of Suai we turned to my friend Sergio da Costa for help. The paintings and drawings on the small canvasses above are his contributions to her project. The project was to provide some paintings of young people in Suai to hang alongside over one thousand portraits painted by youth in Pt Phillip and Obu Japan for the new art gallery inside the new wing of the St Kilda Town Hall.

The images the Australian students have painted of themselves provide a refreshing counterpoint to photographic portraits of youth that are prolific on social networking websites. These painted portraits open up a space in which the concept of identity is more fluid than within photographic self-portraits.

I am waiting on permission from the schools’ art teachers to upload a gallery of the Pt Phillip students’ work.

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Suai Portraits in St Kilda gallery

Obu Portraits from Japan

The portraits from students in Obu are included in the exhibition because of Pt Phillip’s sister city relationship with Obu. My reason for including them is of the link between our three countries due to our history in East Timor in World War 2.

When Sergio heard we were in town he came to see us with a huge painting he had made of a traditional Lautem or Los Palos house in the Eastern most part of East Timor – the head of the crocodile. When he showed that to Pat she commissioned a painting.