In 2024 the Gallery commissioned Coen-based artist Naomi Hobson, to produce a new series of photographs capturing Coen’s vibrant river culture and the relationships between the people and Wukaanta – The Coen River. This was the third series of works commissioned by the Gallery for exhibition and for the Collection.

This exhibition forms part of the Cairns Art Gallery online First Nations Research Archive developed as part of the Gallery’s online Legacy Archive produced to celebrate the Gallery’s 30th anniversary.

Hobson’s Life on the River photographs are intimate pictures of river life and define deep cultural connections to Country. Hobson explains,

‘Living on the river is part of our daily existence and defines who we are as people from Coen, how we look and how we live. The river is spiritually important to us. It represents our history. Our people are buried along the river and there are special birthing sites. The river has fed us for thousands of years – we have laid on the sandbanks and looked at the same star constellations as our ancestors. For us – it’s life. This series of photographs tells our river story.’

Naomi Hobson, 2024.

The exhibition was guest curated by the artist’s daughter, Shonae Hobson.

‘The images are truthful and playful. They portray everyday life during the monsoon season in Coen, capturing the colour of Cape York Peninsula’s wet season and all the bugs, birds, insects, and food gathering that takes place along the river that runs directly past the township.

Each photograph captures the moment – the seconds of everyday interactions with the river – with an honesty and reality that underlies the kin-relationship between subject and artist. Together the works represent the story cycle that Wukaanta has provided, and which has been absorbed by one generation after another. The happenings of today are projected into the past as precisely and explicitly as the happenings of yesterday. Naomi Hobson has an intimate knowledge of nature’s ways, the humorous mimicry of human behaviour, and the peculiar habits of the creature world – all of which are deftly interwoven and presented in her new series of photographs.’

Shonae Hobson, Consultant Curator

Following the purchase of one of Hobson’s early paintings by the Foundation, the Gallery’s three commissioned series of photographs have received national and international acclaim: in 2019 Adolescent Wonderland which Hobson later expanded to produce a major publication; the 1 January series (2021) for the Ritual: the past in the present exhibition that were donated by the artist to the Gallery; and the Life on the River series (2024).

There are 18 works by Naomi Hobson in the Collection, including the Foundation’s purchase of Big Place 2014.