Mathias Kauage (ca. 1944–2003) is the best-known artist in the contemporary arts movement in Papua New Guinea, acclaimed for his boldly colorful paintings of a world radically changing around him during the late twentieth century. He was born in a small, remote village in the Chimbu [Simbu] highlands on the island of New Guinea during World War II. He trained as a fine artist after he moved to Papua New Guinea’s largest urban center, Port Moresby, to find work in his twenties. During his lifetime, he experienced dramatic societal changes—not only during the decades of the colonial period under Australian administration but also after Papua New Guinea achieved independence in 1975. Both periods are a focus of his work. Kauage exhibited internationally, and he was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his services to art in 1997, following which he signed his paintings, “Kauage Mathias. O.B.E. Artis. P.N.G.”
In this painting, a Qantas plane in midair, full of travelers, is conveying Mathias Kauage to the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Scotland, where his paintings were exhibited in 1996 and where he met Queen Elizabeth II at the museum opening. Kauage is pictured in two places on this painting: sitting beside the pilot and also at the bottom right wearing his bilas, or regalia. He has painted Queen Elizabeth II at the bottom left, with her bright red coat, red hat with cockade, and signature handbag represented as a fiber bilum bag, emblematic of the bags women often carry in Papua New Guinea. The flags of both Australia and Papua New Guinea are flying on the horizon as the plane travels from the Southern Hemisphere, represented by the Southern Cross constellation in the top right, to the Northern Hemisphere. Kauage stated that, “The Queen is waiting for me. The two of us open the new museum. Later she gave me the OBE [Order of the British Empire].”