The art of redemption: Myuran Sukumaran's legacy

Archibald prize winner Ben Quilty mentored Sukumaran for several years, paying regular visits to him in the Bali jail, and Deborah Cassrels noted that Sukumaran – Sukumaran was awarded his associate degree in fine arts from Curtin University in February this year– "blossomed under Quilty's metorship". (The Australian, Jan 23).

Writes Cassrels; "After two years of serious training, the novice has emerged as a talent…yet the goal was not to launch an art career, but rather to achieve rehabilitation, unattainable without the support of Indonesia's jail system." (The Australian, August 6, 2014)

Ben Quilty in turn praised Sukumaran's "rare drive to learn" and said; "it has taught me more about the intangible skills that a human needs to make an art practice part of their existence, and more about me." (The Age, Jan 23)

In Never Let Me Go, Tommy, who had such a hard time at Hailsham because he wasn't creative, continues to draw his imaginary animals even after he learns that there will be no "deferral" or delay in starting organ donations. This is part of the outsider's growth, for despite the fact that society has decided that the clones did not have souls, and therefore there was no cruelty in keeping them alive and using them as needed, they display a free will and creativity of their own.

Like Ishiguro's clones, Sukumaran's pursuit of his art did not accomplish the aim of moving those in power to grant him the gift of life. But even after knowing there was no hope, Sukumaran continued to make art, and continued to pursue his academic studies, just as Ishiguro's Tommy continued to draw imaginary animals.

It is the triumph of the human spirit to make art despite there being no monetary or 'useful' value in it. And it is this creative drive – and defiance – in the face of certain death that survives.

It is a sad world that cannot believe in redemption, a bleaker one that turns away from the acts of creativity that nourish the community's soul in times of both light and darkness. This is the gift of the artists among us. It shows us what it is to be truly human, in all its messy, faulty, complexity.