NOLA WARD PAGE | 'The Wedding' | Acrylic on canvas

The Wedding:

"Lifestyle on our little island in the Torres Strait involves outdoor activities like fishing, swimming, boating and camping and the enjoyment of community events.

Special family occasions are privately celebrated including weddings but quite often draws a public crowd ouside the Church to 'sticky-beak' at the happy couple. The hooting of the car horns, as the bridal party is driven round and round the island, is a joyous sound.

I grew up and live in a small community and have always wanted to paint special events like weddings." 

- Nola Ward Page 

Nola Ward Page Nola is a fourth generation local of Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. Her heritage is of the Maluytigal clan of Badu Island, Samoan, English and Cantonese.

She completed her education at the Catholic School on TI and as a young child was taught by her widowed mother to do lots of  handcrafts, play the piano, dress-making (for neighbours for £2/5/- at aged 12) and encouraged to draw.

Nola paints in acrylic and her naïve style is the result of being self-taught.

Living on an island she favours the sea and beach scenes but also likes to paint how the township and lifestyle was during her youth and the era of the pearling industry when the harbour was a hive of activity with luggers and dinghies and hearing stories from her pearl-diver uncles. 

Nola’s recent entry in the local Gab Titui Culture Centre Art Competition won her the History through Art Award titled ‘Old TI - My Beautiful Home’  a panoramic view of TI harbour’s activities in the 1960’s –This painting was purchased by the State Library of Queensland.

For Nola, holding a wet paintbrush to a blank canvas is exciting as she never knows what her completed artwork will look like.

Many of Ward Page’s scenes are viewed though a nostalgic lense evoking industrious days when the harbour was a hive of activity with people and pearling ships. Her work also captures the importance of family and community connection in daily life.

NOLA WARD PAGE | 'The Wedding' | 2024 | Acrylic on canvas | 91 (h) x 91 (w) cm