New Indigenous artwork, inspired by the ocean, in Cairns office

In Shannon Shaw’s artwork, crocodiles swim in pools of brilliant colour, and dolphins play as they migrate in the ocean near her Cairns home.

Shaw grew up watching her father, Yirrganydji elder George Skeene, paint and teach about Aboriginal art and traditions. She took up the paintbrush as a student studying Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at TAFE in Cairns.

Today, her work hangs in QInvest’s Cairns office, and she is preparing for her first solo exhibition in October.

Her painting is one of four that QSuper commissioned from Aboriginal artists to promote reconciliation and to make members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent feel welcome.

‘Annual Migration,’ the large painting that Shaw created for QSuper’s Cairns office, features dolphins, fish, crocodiles and stingrays as they travel to their animal spawning/ceremonial grounds within the Great Barrier Reef.

“I love my dolphins, and then I thought, ‘Well, why not use a lot of the other animals that are up here,’ Shaw said. “You might see them off the beach if you are lucky.”

In the center of the painting, three dolphins dive through a series of rings and play with a ball. Painted on a background of round shapes and traditional Aboriginal dots, the dolphins’ undulating bodies produce a sensation of swimming amid waves.

“Dolphins are just peaceful and relaxed, and they take their time. That’s how I live my life here, peaceful and relaxed,” she said.

“There’s paint everywhere,” she says of her front patio, which doubles as a studio in the house she shares with her two children and two dogs.

As Shannon Shaw watched her father paint when she was young, she got the idea that she could be an artist, too. In addition to working as an artist and historian, her father has worked for the return of Yirrganydji artefacts from Germany and to document cultural sites in their traditional lands, which lie along the coastal plains from Cairns to Port Douglas.

Shaw and her father exchange ideas for stories and designs.

She maintains a Facebook page, Shannon Shaw Art Works, that showcases her paintings.

At QSuper we are dedicated to doing what we can to contribute to reconciliation in Australia. We have members based in remote and very remote areas of Queensland, and we are committed to looking for ways to increase the financial wellbeing and financial literacy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.