POLARI Christian Thompson
Christian Thompson: POLARI
POLARI An Australian artist with a truly international voice.... Christian Thompson’s performance and photographic work propels the viewer beyond the politics of race and injustice towards a more intricate & universal understandings of cultural fragmentation. His current series Polari – is a raw and unflinching look at Australian & English cultural scattering.
“I had an exhibition at The Hospital Club in Covent Garden, London, last year and a visitor to the show told me about the word ‘Polari’ and its origins and meaning, and how it was widely spoken in the council estates and how that sense of community was being destroyed by the fragmentation and gentrification of certain areas of London. I knew that I would eventually use the word in my work and it seemed like a fitting title for this new body of work, indeed the photographs Trinity, Ellipse and Echo have all emerged through the cultural filter that is London. There is rawness to the photographs, an elegance, and a beauty”. Christian Thompson, May 2014
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Echo 1 2014 C-Type print 100 x 75 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Echo II 2014 C-Type print 100 x 100 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Trinity I 2014 C-Type print 100 x 75 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Trinity II 2014 C-Type print 100 x 75 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Trinity III 2014 C-Type print 100 x 75 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON | Trinity I, II & III (set) | 2014 | C-Type print | 100 x 255 | overall (3 pr
ints - 100 x 75 cm each) | edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Ellipse 2014 C-Type print 100 x 100 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Siren 2014 C-Type print 100 x 100 cm edition of 5 +2AP
CHRISTIAN THOMPSON Ariel 2014 C-Type print 100 x 100 cm edition of 5 +2AP
Christian Thompson Bidjara Born 1978, Gawler, South Australia Lives and works in Australia and Oxford Education 1996 Bachelor of Visual Arts in Fine Art, University of Southern Queensland 1999 Bachelor of Visual Arts in Fine Art (Honors), Royal Melbourne Institute
of Technology
2004 Masters of Fine Art, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology! 2008 Dasarts Advanced Studies in Performing Arts, Amsterdam 2010 Matriculated Trinity College to study for DPhil in Fine Art
at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, University of Oxford
Solo Exhibition 2013 Survey Exhibition 2003-2010, Trinity College, Oxford 2012 We Bury Our Own, The Long Gallery, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford 2009 Lost Together, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne 2008 Australian Graffiti, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne 2007 The Sixth Mile, Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney 2006 The Sixth Mile, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Vote Yes – An Aboriginal Thompson Project, Westspace, Melbourne
Ethnoaerobics, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne
2004 The Gates of Tambo, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne 2003 Emotional Striptease, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne 2002 Show Me the Way to Go Home, George Adams Gallery, Melbourne
Blaks Palace, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
Group Exhibitions 2012 HIJACKED III: Contemporary Photography from Australia and the UK,
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and QUAD Gallery, Derby, UK
murr-ma: Uncovering Aboriginal & Australian Contemporary art,
Halle am Wasser and Preview Berlin, Michael Reid, Berlin
Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, Plug In Institute of Contemporary
Art, Winnipeg, Canada
2011 Solo, Modern Art, Oxford, UK
Tell Me Tell Me: Australian and Korean Art 1976-2011, Museum of
Contemporary Art at the National Art School Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney
2010 The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age,
17th Biennale of Sydney
2009 Hybrid Arts Fest Australia, Radialsystem V, Berlin, Germany 2007 Andy and OZ: Parallel Visions, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, USA
Culture Warriors – National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery
of Australia, Canberra
Gertrude Studio Artists, Gertrude Street Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne
Workin Down Under, Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Eye to “I”, Ballarat Regional Art Gallery, Ballarat
Raised by Wolves, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth!
Apropos: Human Rights in Contemporary Art, BUS Gallery, Melbourne
I Spy (The Start of Something), Westspace, Melbourne!
2006 Terra Incognita, Gertrude Street Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne 2004 Skin, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart Sguardi Australiani, Camogli, Italy
A Matter of Time, Tamworth Textile Biennale, Tamworth, New South Wales
Spirit and Vision, Kunst der Gegenwart Sammlung Essl, Vienna
IMAGE - Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Aboriginal Art Museum Utrecht,
Netherlands
The Space Between, Curtin University, Perth
A Matter of Time, Tamworth Textile Biennale, Tamworth, New South Wales
Art Paris, The Louvre, Paris
MAAP Gravity, Multimedia Arts Asia Pacific, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts,
Singapore
2003 Drama is Conflict, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Australians, Perth Institute for Contemporary Art, Perth
Tactility 200 Years of Indigenous Textiles, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
TRAFFIC, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
Emotional Striptease, 24 hour art, Darwin
Drama is Conflict, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
2002 Crossing (New Australian Art), ATSKI Gallery, Helsinki, Finland 2001 LUMO Intohimo, Photographic Triennial of Finland, Helsinki
Message Sticks, Sydney Opera House
2000 Use By, Contemporary Centre for Photography and 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne
Biennale of Contemporary Art, Noumea, New Caledonia
Curated Exhibitions 2007 No Fun Without You, Mahoney Galleries, Melbourne 2006 A lot of Love Goin’ Around, Project Space, Melbourne 2005 Contemporary Commonwealth 06, ACMI and National Gallery of Victoria
Intern – Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne
2004 If You Only Knew, City Gallery, Melbourne
White Hot – New Art from Different Places, Hush Hush Gallery
and City Lights, Melbourne
2003 High Tide – Contemporary Indigenous Photography, Linden Centre
for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
2002 What’s Love Got To Do With It? RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
2000 Beyond the Pale, Adelaide Biennale of Contemporary Australian Art, Adelaide
Assistant to Curator Brenda L. Croft, Adelaide
Awards 2010 Inaugural Charlie Perkins Scholarship for study at Oxford University
Residency, Blast Theory, Brighton, UK
Residency, Green Street Studio, New York, USA
2008 Residency, Dasarts, Advanced Studies in performing Arts, Amsterdam 2007 Australian Post Graduate Award! RIPE Art & Australia / ANZ Private Bank
Contemporary Art Award (Highly Commended)
2006 Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Studio Artist 2006–2008
Residency, ARTPLAY, Cherbourg State Primary School, Melbourne
Centre Contemporary Photography, Kodak Summer
Salon, Best Portrait for ‘In Search of the International Look’
City of Melbourne, Arts and Culture Grant
2005 Curatorial Internship at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Creative Fellow State Library of Victoria
Visual arts and Crafts Grant, Australia Council for the Arts Residency,
RAWSPACE, Brisbane
New Media Arts Grant, Australia Council for the Arts
2004 New Media Arts grant, Australia Council for the Arts
MAAP online Residency, Singapore
2003 City of Melbourne Arts and Culture
Grant Australia Council for the Arts, Emerging Artist Grant
Residency, Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada
2002 City of Melbourne Arts and Culture Grant 2001 Residency, Project 304, Bangkok, Thailand 2000 Alchemy Master Class for Artists, Powerhouse, Brisbane Collections National Gallery of Australia Art Gallery of New South Wales National Gallery of Victoria! Queensland Art Gallery Peter Klein Collection, Eberdingen, Germany Myer Collection, Melbourne City of Melbourne Collection Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands Private Collections
Christian Thompson: POLARI