Bio
Lecturer in Drawing, The National Art School, Sydney.
I grew up in the Blue Mountains and studied visual arts at the University of Western Sydney. I live near the Cooks River, in Sydney’s inner west.
I work with with the weather, drawing, electronics, kinetic sculpture, text, video, and sound. I see this transmedia approach as a means to create installations/systems that are transductions, reflections, and abstractions of more complex phenomena that exist in the world.
I build and work with custom synthesizer modules that incorporate air pressure and electromagnetic sensing. I use these modules to shape sound and control motors/movement. This is a form of expanded synthesis that can help us to understand the broader cultural significance of the synthesizer and its relationship to art, politics, science, and philosophy.
In 2002–03 I spent a year and a half in Mexico with the assistance of the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship. I maintain strong connections to Mexican art and activist culture.
I completed my doctorate in 2009; my thesis considered the relationship between art and neuroscience, focusing on gesture and linguistic embodiment. I have a strong interest in the biological sciences and their relationship to art practice.
I have worked in web and media production, and as a camera operator and editor on a number of film projects including a documentary on Australian author Gerald Murnane and a production of Samuel Beckett’s What Where.
Contact
redwoodword(at)gmail(dot)com
CV
Education
– PhD, University of Western Sydney. Thesis title- Gestural Sense: art neuroscience and linguistic embodiment, graduated 2009.
-BA (fine arts) First Class Honours, University of Western Sydney, graduated 2003.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
-Threshold, in collaboration with Sean O’Connell and Paul Greedy, 55 Sydenham Road, Sydney, August-September 2016
-Standing Wave, William Wright Artist Projects, Sydney, October 2015
-Wave Form, Articulate Project Space, Sydney, April-May 2015
-Dimensions of Line: I/O U in material thought, MOP gallery, Sydney, January-February 2014
-This Place Meant (pretext), Pelt, Sydney, July 2006
-Suddenly Experiencing Duration, Performance, Wednesday 26th October 2005, Artspace, Sydney.
-Dysfunctional Grammars, NTU, Singapore, December 2004.
-Rewriting, Centro de Difusion Cultural, la UNACH, Tuxtla, Mexico, November 2004
Selected Group Exhibitions
-Cementa 22 Festival, Kandos, NSW, May 2022.
Teleplasticity, Teleplasti City and Activist Neuroaesthetics in Video Art, Sawtooth ARI, Launceston, TAS and Wayout Space, Kandos 2022
-Space Y/Z, Campbelltown Arts Centre, January-March 2021
–Drawing On Line (curator), National Centre for Drawing, 2020
-Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award 2019 (finalist), Hazelhurst Arts Centre, September-November 2019
-Electricity, curated by Maryanne Coutts, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, June-July 2019
-Cleave, Articulate Project Space, June 2019
-The Drawing Exchange, Adelaide Cenral School of Art, August-September 2017
-Art Without Agency, Curated by Jane Theau, Ewart Art Gallery, February-March 2017
-Paramor Prize (finalist), Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, February-April 2017
-Grace Cossington Smith Art Award (finalist), Grace Cossington Smith Gallery November-December 2016
-In Motion, Airspace Projects, Sydney, October 2016
-Primavera 2014, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, September-November 2014
-MAP Black Modular, curated by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Haines/Hinterding house, Lawson, 22 June 2014
-Close to Home, Curated by Rilka Oakley, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, NSW, February-April 2013
-Cementa_13 Festival, Kandos, NSW, February 2013
-Origins 2 2012, William Wright Artists Projects, Sydney, December 2012
-Biodiversity and the Arts, The Australian Museum, Sydney, September 2010.
-Non Compos Mentis, Centro Cultural Border, Mexico City, Mexico, August-September 2010
-Breathing Space, Curated by Brendan Prenzer, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, September-October 2009.
-Showing Off: New Media Survey, Curated by Danial Kojta, Bathurst Regional Gallery, August-September 2009.
-Redlands Westpac Art Prize, Curated by Imants Tillers, Mosman Art Gallery, November 2008.
-Between You and Me, Curated by Anneke Jaspers, Firstdraft, Sydney, October-November 2007.
– Estudio Abierto, National Post Office Palace, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November – December 2006.
-Future of the imagination #2; live art meeting, Sculpture Square, Singapore, December 2004
– Performagia, performance art festival, El Museo Universitario del Chopo (Mexico City) and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, 22nd of March – 3rd of April, 2004.
-Softhardanger, Artspace, Sydney, December 2002
-The Moment Forever, Lewers Regional Gallery, Emu Plains, September 2002
-Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Prize, Artspace, Sydney, July 2002
-Hatched; national graduates exhibition, PICA, Perth, March 2001
Prizes and Awards
-‘Arts Projects For Individuals and Groups’, Australia Council for the Arts, 2021.
-‘New Work’ grant (mid-career), Australia Council for the Arts, 2014.
-‘New Work’ grant (emerging), Australia Council for the Arts, 2007.
-Australian Postgraduate Award, February 2005-February 2008.
-Helen Lempriere Traveling Art Scholarship, Helen Lempriere Trustees and the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts, 2002.
Publications and Film Credits
-Feature article, “Forest City”, The Sydney Review of Books, 12 June 2018.
-Review essay, “What Matters: Staying with the Trouble by Donna Haraway”, The Sydney Review of Books, 7 April 2017.
-Article, “What’s in a name? Death and Remembering in Mexico”, The Sydney Review of Books, 4 December 2015.
-Feature article “James Turrell’s Within without: a users guide”, The Sydney Review of Books, 1 August 2014
-Feature article “The Curse of Formalism”, The Sydney Review of Books, 10 September 2013.
-Article “Postulates of Brain Sculpting” ACUADS conference proceedings, 2011.
-Chapter “Difficult Sense” published in the book Literature and Sensation, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. Republished in Short Story Criticism.
-Article “Conversing Through Mirrors”, published in Runway issue 11, 2008.
-Director of photography and editor, Samuel Beckett’s What Where (directed by Walter Asmus)
-Director and Editor, Mental Places: a conversation with Gerald Murnane
Residencies/Workshops
-Associate artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida, studying with master artist Carolee Schneemann, March, 2004.
-Reskin Wearable technology workshop, ANU School of Art, Canberra, January-Febuary 2007.
-Artist in Residence, Serial Space, Sydney, February 2010.