General News
16 October, 2026
Sea life in living colour
THE moment Jimmy Buffett held up a coconut painting onstage in front of thousands of fans, a gift from Mission Beach artist Jenn Payne was the kind of surreal, joy filled moment that artists dream of.
Now, Ms Payne is inviting the community to step into her world of colour, coastlines and coconuts as she launches ‘Paradise Painted’, opening at 4pm on 30 October at Bingil Bay Café, complete with a lively Parrot Head Party celebrating the music of Buffett and performances by Cairns band Barbary Coasters. Everyone is encouraged to dress in their best tropical attire.
Ms Payne’s artistic journey began far from a studio, but rather out on the ocean.
“The ocean’s inspiration stirred my imagination,” she said.
After more than 30 years working on boats from Mission Beach to the Great Barrier Reef, Ms Payne often told tourists during her reef commentary that one day she would learn to paint the beauty she saw daily.
In 2003, she made good on that promise, picking up acrylics and painting the paradise around her.
Her early works featured boats, islands and reef scenes, but a playful experiment painting on coconuts quickly became a hit with tourists at her market stall.
Soon, she was affectionately known as Coconut Jenn.
Her career continued to grow. In 2010, her painting, ‘Brammo Bay Boathouse’, appeared on the cover of Artists Palette, an international art magazine.
From 2011 to 2019, Ms Payne lived and painted aboard her catamaran, cruising the Queensland coast and selling her work at markets.
In 2018, her piece ‘Tropical Wonderland’ featured on the cover of Mission Beach Magic.
But nothing topped the moment in 2012 when Jimmy Buffett lifted her coconut painting onstage in Brisbane, thanking her personally and declaring it was “going straight to his pool room”.
A 2016 workshop in Bora Bora deepened Ms Payne’s connection to Polynesian art, influencing her latest collection, ‘Coral Sea Tapa’, a fusion of her North Queensland home and the islands she loves.
One of these new works was recently acquired by a Tahitian collector living in France.
Paradise Painted celebrates more than two decades of capturing tropical life, blending reef blues, island greens and Polynesian warmth into a vibrant exhibition that reflects Ms Payne’s life at sea and her love of paradise.
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