Artist Talk: Brian Robinson
Standard | $15
Concession | $10
Friend Members receive 15% off ticket pricing for this event.
Location
Epoch Cafe
Site access information
WA Museum Boola Bardip is fully accessible. Call 1300 134 081 for assistance. Accessible resources and programs >
Join acclaimed Torres Strait Islander artist Brian Robinson as he discusses the creative practice behind the development of his current exhibition, Malu: Where Tides Leave Their Mark.
Renowned for his seamless blending of traditional and contemporary cultural and political narratives, Robinson’s intricately detailed multidisciplinary works draw on lived experience, ancestral knowledge and enduring cultural tradition.
In this artist talk, discover the stories and cosmological connections that influence his practice and explore how culture, place and identity leave their mark across generations.
Malu: Where Tides Leave Their Mark
The Malu Exhibition will be open for ticket holders between 5.15pm to 6pm to view before the scheduled talk.
Artist Statement
In the beginning, the spirits and deities created the Islander world. Ancestors such as Sida of Papua New Guinea, Gelam of Moa, and Waiet of Mabuiag shaped the islands, giving each its unique attributes—the fertile abundance of Mer, the inland waters of Erub, and the rugged rocky foreshores of Moa. Through these ancestral beings came the knowledge of song, dance, ceremony, and the making of sacred objects, cultural inheritances carried across the sea like currents moving between islands and communities.
Malu—the Kala Lagaw Ya word for sea or ocean—extends beyond a simple description of water. It speaks of a living ancestral realm that binds Torres Strait Islander people to spirit, memory, navigation, and identity. The sea is not separate from life; it is life itself. It is a cultural and spiritual continuum where stories are carried by tides, mapped through stars, and remembered through song, dance, and oral histories that have endured for countless generations.
In this exhibition, the ocean becomes both archive and witness. It carries the memory of creation stories, ancestral journeys, trade routes, ceremonies, and the seasonal rhythms that have long governed Islander life. The movement of tides reflects the movement of knowledge itself—fluid, interconnected, and constantly evolving. Cultural practices such as turtle-shell mask making, ceremonial dances, and seafaring traditions emerge from this intimate relationship with Sea Country.
Within Torres Strait cosmology, spirits and deities do not exist in a distant realm removed from everyday existence. They inhabit rocks, reefs, trees, pools of water, and dark caves, manifesting themselves through birds, reptiles, and sea creatures. These beings move between human and non-human forms, embodying the shifting and transformative nature of the ocean itself.
Through layered imagery, intricate patterning, and flowing forms, Malu: Where Tides Leave Their Mark reflects upon the enduring relationship between Islanders and the sea. The works evoke currents, reefs, celestial pathways, and ancestral traces embedded within the landscape and waters of the Torres Strait. Ultimately, the exhibition honours Malu as both origin and living presence—a keeper of memory where every tide, wave, and current leaves its mark upon the land, the people, and the spirit of Sea Country.
Access information
WA Museum Boola Bardip is a fully accessible venue.
If you're attending this event and would like to request Auslan interpretation, please contact reception@museum.wa.gov.au or call 1300 134 081 a minimum of five working days before the event to allow time for us to make these arrangements.
Meet the Artist
Artist Brian Robinson was born in 1973 on Waiben, Thursday Island, a place where horizons are fluid and the boundaries between sea, sky, and spirit dissolve. It is here, in this meeting place of currents and cultures, that his story begins—layered, expansive, and deeply interconnected. His lineage unfolds like a living map: he is a Maluyligal man of the Western Torres Strait, a Wuthathi man of the shimmering silica sands of Shelburne Bay, a descendant of the Dayak peoples of Sarawak, connected to the Villaflor family of the Philippines, and carrying also the ancestral echoes of Scotland and England. Within him, these diverse inheritances do not rest quietly—they move, converge, and resonate, forming a dynamic cultural constellation that informs every aspect of his creative life.
Robinson’s practice is deeply shaped by the sea — Malu — a living force that carries memory, navigation, spirituality and ancestral knowledge across generations. Raised within a family of fisher folk whose Roman Catholic faith existed in harmony with traditional Islander beliefs, Robinson’s works move fluidly between worlds, weaving together Torres Strait cosmology, oral histories and contemporary popular culture. His intricate visual language merges ancestral narratives with references drawn from Renaissance art, mythology, science fiction, arcade gaming and cinematic universes, creating layered works that unfold like celestial maps or tidal charts. Within these shifting constellations, cultural icons are transformed into spiritual entities that inhabit the ontological realm of Zenadth Kes.
For Robinson, the sea is both archive and storyteller. Malu becomes a metaphor for movement and exchange — a space where histories, mythologies and cultural encounters converge. His works reflect the cosmopolitan nature of Torres Strait Islander culture, acknowledging centuries of voyaging, trade and adaptation while celebrating the innovation that continues to define life across the Pacific.
Punctuated with humour, wonder and visual complexity, Robinson’s works invite audiences into immersive narratives where stingrays glide through galaxies, ancestral spirits encounter superheroes, and Islander patterning expands into vast cosmic terrains. Across more than three decades of practice, he has produced major public artworks throughout Australia, including the iconic Woven Fish (2003) and Reef Guardian (2017) at the Cairns Esplanade Lagoon, alongside commissions for the Commonwealth Games, hospitals and civic spaces.
Through Malu, Robinson continues to chart the enduring relationship between sea, sky and story, revealing the ocean not only as a place of sustenance, but as a vast and interconnected realm of cultural memory and imagination.
