Warrant Officer 2 (Ret'd) Kapua Gutchen

Kapua Gutchen Senior, artist and elder, was born on Waiben (Thursday Island) in 1957, and grew up on Erub (Darnley Island) in the Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait). A Meriam Mir man, he enlisted with the Australian Army in 1987, and later taught himself to draw. For more than 20 years he sketched people, campsites, community infrastructre, shipping and boat movements, before he began to expand his artistic repertoir, drawing from his imagination and memory.

In 2018 the Australian War Memorial commissioned Gutchen and Erub Erwer Meta (Erub Arts) to create a suite of drawings depicting Second World War stories unique to Erub and the eastern region of the Torres Strait, including those relating to his own service with C Company, 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment.