Art
No Order Magazine talks with the artist.
Visual artist, father, geriatric skateboarder, notorious over-thinker. My work speaks about how information and media are delivered and consumed in contemporary society. I have a practice that spans over 20 years and I’ve just completed the final milestones of my PhD candidature at the Queensland College of Art.
How did your career begin?
Since my teens I’ve always surrounded myself with other creatives and like-minded individuals. I began showing work in group shows in my early 20s and became involved in art collectives and shared studio spaces. In 2014 I began my undergraduate study at the Queensland College of Art, majoring in sculpture and printmaking before going onto Honours and then my PhD. I consider my enrolment at Uni the real turning point in my career as an artist. Even though I had been exhibiting work for many years before my study, Uni diversified my practice and gave me the language and the means to properly develop and articulate what I was saying. I don’t believe you need to go to university to become a successful artist but it certainly helped me develop my practice and create networks that will serve me for many years to come. No regrets.
Do you have a set process when it comes to making work and is there a part of that process that people may find surprising?
My process for making art is to trust in the process, if that makes sense. At this point in my career my research informs the concepts and often the materials and delivery of the work I make. When I say research, I’m speaking about academic research, but it also involves doom-scrolling Facebook and Instagram or watching advertising, music film clips and the nightly news and making observations. I try to choose the medium or materials that best serve the message I’m trying to convey and that often informs the way that I approach the making of the work. It’s also important to me to not always take things too seriously to have fun with it. I often make work without an audience in mind and simply because it makes me chuckle.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Are there any wild stories from your career that are memorable to you?
Countless stories and memories. Some of which I’m not entirely comfortable about putting into print. Off the top of my head - I have a friend who called a bomb threat to his own opening night. Out of nowhere about six cop cars showed up, emptied the entire gallery of people and searched everyone up against the wall on the footpath outside after they secured the building. It kind of spoiled the party, but it imprinted a memory of that night into everyone’s minds and it’s a story that we’re still telling nearly 2 decades later.
Read the full interview in Issue 03
Published: 16th September 2023