Ako Jakupa

Jakupa Ako (known as Jakupa) is the recipient of an O.B.E, awarded in 1981. Born about 1942 in the Bena Bena region of the Eastern Highlands, his career as an artist began when he worked as a janitor in the newly opened Teachers' College at Goroko when he began to paint alongside enrolled students. Because his work showed great imagination, Tom Craig, the head of Expressive Arts, offered him a scholarship to Creative Arts Center (later renamed the National Arts School) when Craig became its first director in 1972.



Like Mathias Kauage, Jakupa is a lively chronicler of village and town life. His images are based on stories of local village myths or the life he sees around him. His love of color, coupled with his use of lively organic shapes, has created a strong rhythmic quality to his work that recalls the repetitive beat of traditional Highland dance. During his extended stay at the National Arts School as permanent artist-in-residence, Jakupa regularly exhibited his paintings and was also commissioned to do work for the government or private businesses. He has also exhibited in Australia and other Pacific venues. His best known work includes images on the façade of the Parliament House, murals at the Boroko market, and paintings that hang in the Prime Minister's and Speaker's offices. Several of his paintings are also included in Hugh Stevenson collection, which toured the Pacific in the exhibition Luk Luk Gen in 1990. His work has also been the subject of two commercial films made by the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies in 1974 and the Australian Film maker James Gerrand in 1977. Jakupa died suddently from malaria in 1997 while visiting Meganau, his home village. This is particularly ironic because, at the time of his death, the PNG government were using two of latest paintings to educate PNG people about malaria prevention. Jakupa's legacy as an artist is carried on by his son Pax Jakupa, who was awarded a Commonwealth Arts and Crafts Scholarship to the Oceania School of Arts in Fiji in 2002.