Clan groups:

Language groups: Torres Strait Creole

Robert (Tommy) Pau was born in Townsville in 1967. He is of the Samsep tribe of Erub in the Torres Strait. A printmaker, painter, educator and home tailor with an interest in fashion and textiles, Pau’s bloodline stems from cultural heritages that includes the Meriam of Erub, Australian Aboriginal, Papua New Guinean, Pacific Islander and Chinese.

Torres Strait cultural practices and values were instilled in him from an early age through his father, Ettie Pau (OAM), as well as other members of his family and the community. Pau has an unwavering commitment to keeping old traditions alive and believes culture must remain true to the past, while adapting to current conditions for it to exist into the future.  

Pau works across a range of media, using printmaking techniques as well as painting and sculpture to create works that depict historical and contemporary interpretations of different aspects of his culture. 

In 2022 Pau was awarded a Cairns RSL Club Artist Fellowship to produce a new body of work for his first solo exhibition at the Gallery entitled Ilan Oman. Specifically, Pau’s art explores how life was, and still is, practised in the Torres Strait, particularly through the matriarchal line. Four prints from the The Blooming flowers series were purchased from the exhibition for the Gallery’s Collection.

Pau’s works are represented in several major public and private collections in Australia. In 2016 he won the Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for works on paper.

Pau is represented in Cairns Art Gallery’s online First Nation Research Archive developed as part of the Gallery’s online Resource Archive produced to celebrate the Gallery’s 30^th anniversary.