Context (Production / use)
Kauage was one of the founding figures of modern art in the Pacific, and remains to date the most internationally-celebrated Papua New Guinean artist to have worked in modern media. Kauage (c. 1944-2003) was born in Chimbu Province in the Papua New Guinea highlands. In the late 1960s he was employed as a labourer in Port Moresby and was inspired by an exhibition of drawings by a fellow-Highlander, Timothy Akis. Like Akis, he was encouraged and supported by Georgina Beier. Together with her husband Ulli, Georgina influentially fostered contemporary art, theatre, and literature in Nigeria and Papua New Guinea.Kauage's work evolved rapidly. Early on he drew fantastic creatures inspired by Chimbu myth, but soon progressed to scenes of Moresby town life and political events. Embracing colour, he went on to produce major paintings around Papua New Guinea's Independence in 1975, aspects of colonial history, and his own experience - not least his meeting with the Queen, who awarded him an OBE in 1998. His later works were often signed 'Kauage - Artist of PNG'.
The painting depicts the artist’s own resistance to an injection while at primary school. In one sense the experience is universal, in another what is depicted is the encounter between Australian medical staff and a group of Melanesian children of the first and last generation of Highlanders subject to a brief period of colonial administration. Kauage did not see his work as a vehicle for the representation of customary culture - but more interestingly envisaged diverse events from a Highlands aesthetic perspective.

Event Date 3/12/2012
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Acrylic painting by Mathias Kauage, titled 'Biting the Doctor's arm', 1990. The work features the artist as a child being injected at primary school, the children's faces nearby look on. Signed 'Kauage 1969 1990' on lower right.


Event Date 3/12/2012
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited: On display in 'Gifts and Discoveries', LKS Gallery between May 25 2012 and February 18 2013.
Event Date 19/2/2013
Author: Remke van der Velden