Alick Tipoti

Tribe: Badhu, Wakaydh, Argan

Totem: Koedal (crocodile), Thupmul (fileray)

Wind: Naygay (North East) Sager (South East)

Stars: Zugubaw Baydham (Shark Star Constellation to the North)

Country: Badu Island, Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait) Melanesian

Born on Waiben (Thursday) contemporary linocut printer and sculptor Alick Tipoti became interested in art from an early age. Tipoti who speaks both Kala Lagaw Ya of the Maluilgal Nation and Kala Kawa Ya of the Guda Maluyligal Nation of the Torres Strait received an Advanced Diploma in Arts from Thursday Island TAFE College. He went on to study at the School of Art at the Australian National University, Canberra and in 1994 he was awarded a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Printmaking).

In 2007, he held his first solo exhibition, ‘Malangu – From the sea’, at the Andrew Baker Gallery in Brisbane. The show was a resounding success and as a result it toured nationally and internationally to 8 other galleries over the course of 2008 and 2009.

Tipoti won the Shell Fremantle Print Award in 2001 and the Work on Paper award at the 20th and 24th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2003 and 2007. In 2008 he won the inaugural Gab Titui Indigenous Art Award and the Slik Cut Award for lino prints, the Non-Acquisitive Prize at the Fremantle Print Award and the People’s Choice Award at the 25th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. In 2009 he won a Torres Strait Cultural Award: ‘Senior Cultural’ Australia Day Awards and in 2012 he won the Torres Strait Artist of the Year award at the NAIDOC Awards.