Chan, Sukumaran will comfort others

Artist Ben Quilty expects condemned Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to provide comfort to those also facing execution "until the last second".

The Australian men are expected to face the firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan in the early hours of Wednesday.

"You may take their freedom and their lives, you may rob their fellow inmates of the support and love that both men have offered for so long... but you will never kill the memory of them," Mr Quilty wrote on a Facebook post addressed to Indonesian president Joko Widodo.

Chan will "calm and console" the seven others with them on Nusakambangan while Sukumaran will translate the executioner's words, Mr Quilty said.

"I know that before the sound of your guns, the island will hear the comforting whisper of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan," he wrote.