Segar Passi was born on Mer Island (Murray) in the Eastern Torres Straits on the 3rd of September, 1942 into the Dauareb Tribe. He paints seascapes, landscapes and portraits. Segar is essentially self-taught and has been an artist since his early childhood years.
From very early in his childhood he possessed a natural ability and a deep desire to express himself through his painting. As a young boy, he used charcoal and a variety of crushed stones mixed with saltwater to create his colours, and dried pandanus fruit as brushes. Clam shells became his paint containers and he used the milk from certain Island weeds mixed with charcoal to make temporary body tattoos. Many of his early water colours were done on large flat rocks that he found locally.
At primary school he realised that he had artistic talent when in art class his fellow classmates would pass him their slates and asked him to complete their art class assignments. Segar's favourite subjects at that time were “Superman” (his comic book hero), boats flowers and fish.
It was “down south” on mainland Australia that Segar first began to use oil colours. Whilst completing a “textile Course” at the Darwin TAFE in 1995 he exhibited a painting which reminded him of his wonderful Island life. The subject was a man standing by the shore scooping sardines from the water whilst his wife watched on from the sandy beach.
Some of his charcoal and watercolour drawings are illustrated in the book entitled “Myths and Legends of Torres Strait” which was published by Margaret Lawrie in 1970. He has also illustrated “Island Stories” in books used at the Thursday Island Kindergarten and Primary School. Some of his paintings which were commissioned by the Queensland Department of Education hang in the Principals office at Mer State School on Murray Island.
A great deal of his work is done directly on to permanent surfaces as it was when he was a child. Two are displayed in churches on Mer Island and one in a church at St. Pauls on Moa Island. Two more are on the exterior walls of the local supermarket and fish freezer and one on the interior wall of the Community Hall on Mer Island. All of these a large paintings depicting the people, his Island home, its birds, fish and the sea to which he is so spiritually attached.
