Christopher Bassi - Notes for a Palm Sermon
CIAF City-Wide Program | Cairns Art Gallery | FREE
10 Jun – 7 Sep 2025
Open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 10am-2pm
Free entry | No bookings required
Christopher Bassi’s solo exhibition, Notes for a Palm Sermon, is the artist’s first exhibition at Cairns Art Gallery and augments the research into Torres Strait Islander art, culture and traditions that the Gallery fosters.
Staged to coincide with the 2025 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, the exhibition presents a body of new paintings commissioned by the Gallery and sculptural works from a private collection. Research for Notes for a Palm Sermon included travel to the Torres Strait for Bassi and was generously supported by the Double R Arts Foundation.
A series of foliage-based paintings and sculptural objects of reverence illuminate moments of devotion with the spiritual, cultural, and ancestral currents that connect Bassi to the Torres Strait. His work deeply penetrates this connection to reveal how the sacred – not confined to formal worship or ceremony – unfolds through the presence of community and quietly resonant acts of remembering.
Image (top):
Christopher BASSI
Meriam, Yupungathi
b. 1990, Brisbane, Queensland
Untitled, Frangipani 2025
oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
Photographer: Michael Marzik
Christopher Bassi, Notes for a Palm Sermon is supported by the Double R Arts Foundation.
