Clan groups:

Language groups: Torres Strait Creole

Robert (Tommy) Pau was born in Townsville in 1967 and has cultural connections to Australian Aboriginal people, the Eastern Torres Strait islands, Papua New Guinea, Pacific Islands and Asia.

From a young age Tommy was taught to understand and respect the need for keeping culture strong through traditional cultural practices. His father believed passionately in the old traditions and keeping them alive, and Tommy shares this passion, believing that culture must remain true to the past while moving with the time so that it continues to exist and be relevant and strong.

Tommy works across a range of media, using printmaking techniques as well as painting and sculpture to create works that depict historical and contemporary interpretations of different aspects of his culture. 

Tommy has participated in numerous exhibitions and his works are represented in a number of major public and private collections in Australia. In 2016 he won the Telstra Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander Art Award for works on paper, and in 2022 he received a Cairns Art Gallery Fellowship Award sponsored by the Cairns RSL Club.