Death Penalty News

Ben Quilty (left) and Michael Dagostino MORE than 20,000 people have now walked through the doors at Campbelltown Arts Centre to see the world premiere of the paintings of executed Bali Nine drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran. The Another Day in Paradise exhibition features, among other works by Sukumaran, self-portraits which offer an insight into the mind and rollercoaster emotions of a man on death row. The controversial and polarising exhibition will run until March 26. It is being co-curated by artist Ben Quilty. Sukumaran, who was executed in 2015, painted the works during his imprisonment at Bali’s Kerobokan jail and final incarceration at Nusa Kambangan Island. Campbelltown Arts Centre director Michael Dagostino said he was “blown away” to see the figure tick over to 20,000 on Monday. “We’ve had people from Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland come here to see this exhibition,” he said. “It really shows the power of art. “Looking at the feedback...

Myuran Sukumaran stands in front of a self-portrait in Kerobokan's art studio. In just a few hours he would face the firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan, otherwise known as Indonesia’s notorious “death island”. Along with “mastermind” pal Andrew Chan, they would lead a procession of six other death row prisoners in a rendition of Amazing Grace as they walked towards their fate. Despite late pleas for clemency, their options were exhausted. Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia, made it clear he wasn’t going to budge. There was no way out. Myuran knew he was going to die. It was God’s plan, he would tell a pastor just before his death. It’s been less than two years since the convicted drug smugglers were executed at 12.35am local time (3.35am AEST) on April 29, 2015, by a 13-member firing squad. The young men were marched out of prison with a guard of honour — other inmates shaking hands and hugging them goodbye. This was the impact of M...

Another Day In Paradise: "The interest has been so strong that staff have to order two reprints of the exhibition program." CLOSE to 4000 people have visited the Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise exhibition in its first week of opening at Campbelltown Arts Centre. The interest has been so strong that staff have had to order two reprints of the exhibition program and the show will also open on Australia Day so more people have the chance to visit. Campbelltown Arts Centre director Michael Dagostino, who co-curated the exhibition with Sukumaran’s mentor Ben Quilty, said he was humbled by the attention and the show had attracted high interest from interstate and overseas. The exhibition features dramatic self portraits painted by Bali Nine member Sukumaran, who was executed in Indonesia in 2015. Sukumaran found a passion for art and painted the portraits, including a series featuring each Bali Nine member, while incarcerated in Bali’s Kerobokan Jai...

Lawyer Julian McMahon with three self-portraits by Myuran Sukumaran The brother of executed Bali Nine member Myuran Sukumaran joined community leaders to speak out against the death penalty at the emotional world premiere of an art exhibition featuring his paintings in Campbelltown last night. Chintu Sukumaran choked back tears as he told the hundreds of people who attended the opening night of the Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise exhibition that he and his family felt a cross between pride and anger to see his brother's emotive and thought-provoking artworks on display. "We are proud that Myu's work is being shown to the world but we are angry that he is no longer with us," he said. "Our family feel great sadness that his life was cut short so violently. We miss him all the time. "It's important to stand up against the death penalty." Mr Sukumaran, who attended the opening night with mum Raji and sister Brintha, ...

Myuran Sukumaran (left) and Ben Quilty in Kerobokan's art workshop Artist Ben Quilty co-curated an exhibition of works by Bali-9 member Myuran Sukumaran. It's a bittersweet elegy to the redemptive magic of art. Brushstrokes are declarations. Myuran Sukumaran’s swirls of paint, gingerly daubed onto canvas then layered heavily and deliberately are the markings of a man declaring his faith in the life-giving power of art – even as the prospect of death was closing in. “When I first met Myuran, he was very humble, quite shy but had a fierce fire and thirst for knowledge about painting,” smiles Ben Quilty, who alongside Michael Dagostino, is the co-curator of Another Day in Paradise . The exhibition brings 100 paintings by Sukumaran, who was executed in April last year with fellow Bali Nine member Andrew Chan, to Sydney for the first time. “He wanted to learn, he wanted to do it. Although the Australian media fed us the message that he was this violent, aggressive enforcer, I m...

Another Day in Paradise - Myuran Sukumaran's exhibition opens in Sydney. This week Sydneysiders will have their first opportunity to view the hauntingly beautiful artworks painted by Myuran Sukumaran during his final days on death row in Bali's Kerobokan prison. While the exhibition, Another Day in Paradise which opens at the Campbelltown Arts Centre on Friday, is a chance to reflect on his life and the brutality of the death penalty, we mustn't shy away from a difficult home truth: the Australian Federal Police's role in his death. In April 2015, Indonesia executed Sukumaran by firing squad, alongside Andrew Chan, a fellow member of the so-called Bali Nine who had also been convicted of drug trafficking offences. The execution of the two men united Australia against the death penalty as never before. The men's rehabilitation during their 10 years in prison, as well as the harshness of the ultimate penalty, had struck a chord. Hundreds of thousand...

'Another Day in Paradise' - Myuran Sukumaran's exhibition opens in Sydney The title for the first major exhibition of art works by Myuran Sukumaran, Another Day in Paradise , came directly from the executed drug smuggler himself. Those words appeared in a subject line of an email sent to artist and Sukumaran’s mentor Ben Quilty, following a particularly violent riot at Bali’s Kerobokan Prison. For the last four years of Sukumaran’s life, he ran an art studio within the prison and taught lessons to his fellow inmates. Sukumaran had access to the prison’s medical facility so that he could test participants for drugs (if there were drugs found within the art studio it would be shut down), which meant that when the riot broke out it was he who had to help. “There was a machete wound to a man’s leg,” Quilty says. “He sent me these very grainy iPhone photos of him sewing up a man’s leg, and there was just blood everywhere, and the email subject line was ‘another ...

Myuran Sukumaran (left) and Ben Quilty in Kerobokan's painting workshop How many times will I have to watch as a privileged, white politician pronounces, “We are not a racist country”? I’m keenly aware that we are a remarkably tolerant and multicultural society. But we have a deep scar of racism that runs thick through our suburbs. And we all know it. Ask an Indigenous person how their day goes. Think of their ancestors being driven off their own land. Think of the hundreds of recorded Indigenous massacre sites across this country, how only a shameful handful are publicly acknowledged. Raji Sukumaran abandoned her own troubled homeland when her eldest son was a year old. She fled war with her ill husband, from Sri Lanka to London, following a trail of Sri Lankans, all seeking a safer future. London in the ’80s was brutal for the Sukumaran family and within two years Raji was planning to resettle again in Australia. In the last year of her eldest son’s life, I asked him...

Myuran Sukumaran The mother of executed Bali Nine drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran wants her son's artwork to travel the world as a powerful anti-death penalty message. Speaking to 7.30 for the first time since Sukumaran's death in Indonesia in 2015, Raji Sukumaran said her once staunch-faith in God had been shaken by the execution of her son. She recalled trying to enjoy her time with him as she watched him painting in prison, first in Bali then on the execution island of Nusakambangan. "I used to sit behind him and watch him for hours and hours," Ms Sukumaran said. "He spent so much time and he was so proud of it. The last paintings, he said, 'If I had another two years! If I have another six months! I could do better'." Her son's last days and hours play like a film on Ms Sukumaran's mind. "I told him to go and have a rest. I told him to go and have a shower and have a rest and what for? He was going to be t...