Billy Missi

DOB: c.1970 - 2012
BORN: Mabuiag Island, QLD
LANGUAGE GROUP: Kala Lagaw Ya/  Brokan - Torres Strait creole
COMMUNITY: Western Torres Strait, QLD

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Billy Missi was born on Mabuiag Island in 1970. Informed by a childhood engaged with story-telling, song and dance traditions of the Wagedagam Tribe, Missi’s inherited creativity combined with his passion and experience growing up with the living customary practices prepared him for his journey into art. He felt the impulse to create when he first encountered the works of contemporary Torres Strait Islander artists in 1992, but it was not until 1999 that he felt ready to devote himself to his artistic pursuits full-time. With only minimal initial formal training on Moa Island, under the tutelage of Dennis Nona, he rapidly worked his way to the forefront of contemporary Zenadh-Kes printmaking. Missi skillfully combined traditional carving techniques, iconography and his distinct fish-bone patterns with the Western medium of the linocut to forge a new aesthetic and print movement in the 1990s alongside his peers, an aesthetic firmly based on traditional Torres Strait Islander principles. Billy Missi gained international recognition prior to his passing in 2012.

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Billy Missi initially came to national attention as an artist when he was awarded the Lin  Onus Youth Award in the 2000 Heritage Art Awards in Canberra for his print coloured print, Dhangal Um Araik, depicting his totemic dugong under a rainbow. A raft of awards, group exhibitions and commissions followed over the next decade. He held his first major solo show at Kick Arts in Cairns in 2008. The exhibition Urapun Kai Buai (One Big Kin) subsequently toured to venues around Australia. Fittingly the highlight of Billy’s career occurred during NAIDOC Week in 2011 when his brilliant solo exhibition featuring the most intimate clan designs and imagery was held at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Entitled The works of Billy Missi it was a fitting tribute to a life of a man deeply steeped in his culture.