Arone Meeks mourned as show opens just one week after tragic death

The final exhibition of renowned Queensland artist Arone Meeks will go ahead, as the arts community mourns his untimely death.

As his latest exhibition opens at Onespace Gallery in West End in Brisbane today the Queensland arts community is mourning the death last week of respected Cairns-based Indigenous artist Arone Meeks. He passed away in Cairns hospital after a short battle with cancer. He was 64.

Indigenous artist Arone Meeks has passed away at the age of 64. Picture: Brendan Radke

Meeks was an inspirational visionary at the forefront of the Far North Queensland art world and was heavily involved in the establishment of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) and since 2017 had been on the CIAF Board of Directors. The festival has paid tribute to him as an artist and “a teacher, a staunch advocate for the arts, and a generous supporter of Queensland’s Indigenous artists and communities”.

Artist Arone Meeks and fellow TAFE teacher Lynelle Flinders working on art for a fashion show. Picture: Justin Brierty

Onespace Gallery co-director John Stafford says he was devastated by Meeks death but that it had been decided to press on with his exhibition as a tribute.

The show, entitled on entitled, Evidence, features works that speak of cross cultural interaction, relationships, gender, traditional and modern spirituality and his environment and also delves into notions of anthropological fetishisation of First Nations people.

Arone Meeks will be remembered as a visionary.

Paintings and prints punctuated by an intense ultramarine blue signal Meeks’ latest body of work that draws as much on his heritage and narratives as a Kuku Miidiji man from Cape York.