Arts
Picture of kindness captures hearts
A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD asylum seeker has won this year’s RACT Insurance Tasmanian Portraiture Prize People’s Choice Award.
Murtazza, whose last name cannot be used, drew his winning piece, Ajai, while at the Pontville Detention Centre.
The subject is a kindly woman from a library who made him feel welcome in Australia.
“I’m a 16-year-old boy living without my mother and my family,” his artist statement said.
“I can say I came to Australia by boat in a very dangerous condition. From the first time, from when I put my foot in the door, I felt alone.”
The woman he described as having a “great heart” said he could call her Ajai, or grandmother in Hazaragi.
“From here I understood how the Tasmanian people have great hearts,” he said.
The Examiner