Cairns Indigenous Art Fair
By Year 3/4 ST Yorkeys Knob State School
On Friday 31st July our class, 3/4 ST from Yorkeys Knob State School went on an amazing
excursion to the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair. Mr Kettle, our school principal, Ms Bucklar, our
Arts and music teacher and class teacher Mrs Sigley joined us on this exciting indigenous
learning experience.
CIAF is a collection of paintings, sculpture and performances from talented indigenous
artists across Queensland. Our class was
lucky enough to win an invitation to attend
thanks to Miss T, our other awesome
classroom teacher.
My favourite exhibit was the
ghost net weaving, this sculpture
was woven from Ghostnets (old
fishing nets) which were washed
up on the beach. It looked like a
man holding a spear, I thought
the texture of it was so incredible
and it looked almost realistic.
By Henry Pattenden.
My favourite art work was the flower
that had hidden pictures in it. The
hidden pictures were of a camouflaged
frog jumping off a lily pad and a
minion’s face. I like this picture because
the camouflage pictures were pretty
hard to see. There were a lot of
sculptures and painting. Most of the
sculptures were made out of iron and
Ghostnets. Many of the paintings were
about animals. We also got to meet
some of the local artists and ask them
questions about their art work and how
long it took to complete a painting or
a sculpture. By Hanson Kiwa
My favourite piece of art was the
Ghostnet Dari created by Jimmy
Thaiday. I like it because the Dari is a
traditional dance and ceremonial
headdress and it is on the Torres Strait
flag to symbolise unity of all Torres
Strait Islanders. I think Jimmy
Thaiday’s idea to reuse the ghost nets
to make his artwork was good because
the ghost nets are old nets that have
been washed to shore. By Shaquanna
Poi Poi
My most favourite piece of
art was a spectacular
painting of multi-coloured
kangaroos wearing aboriginal
flag glasses. It tells a story to
look into our aboriginal souls
and that we may all look
different but we are all the
same inside. This painting
was designed by Gordon
Hookey and was printed on a
huge piece of fabric. By Kirra
Donaldson.
When we returned to school we worked with Ms Bucklar to create our own art works using
printmaking. We drew a design using line, shape and pattern onto printing foam and then
put all of these together to make one class piece. We think our art work is awesome!