Tom Nicholson’s solo exhibition surveys the central role drawing plays in his engagement with contemporary political realities in Australia and beyond. The show presents works from 2005 to 2018, focusing on both the histories and possibilities of drawing, and its relationship to writing. The exhibition will feature the final chapter of Drawings and correspondence: a new commission by IMA, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. The project centres upon a moment at Kwartatuma/Ormiston Gorge in Central Australia, at the outbreak of WWII, in the remarkable relationship between the non-Aboriginal watercolourist Rex Battarbee and the Western Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira.
The show will be accompanied by the first monograph of Nicholson’s work, Lines towards Another, edited by Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes, and co-published by the IMA, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and Sternberg Press.
The publication Tom Nicholson: Lines towards Another is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Myer Foundation.
Biography
Nicholson lives and works in Melbourne. Recent exhibitions include Superposition: Art of Equilibrium and Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018); I was born in Indonesia, Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne; The National: New Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (both 2017); Maju Kena, Mundur Kena (Neither forward nor back): Learning in The Present, 16th Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia (2015); Cartoons for Joseph Selleny, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2014); He is a lecturer at Monash Art Design and Architecture, Monash University, and is represented by Milani Gallery.
Hear from the artist in conversation with Amelia Barikin at the book launch and opening event, Saturday 24 March, 5pm.
Image: Tom Nicholson, ‘Cartoons for Joseph Selleny’ (detail), 2014-17. 12 cartoons, charcoal drawings perforated and pounced with cheesecloth bags full of ground charcoal; wall drawing created through pouncing with cheesecloth full of ground charcoal, 1200 × 500 cm; off-set printed artist’s book to take away. At TWMA, in the Tarrawarra International, 2017. Photograph: Christian Capurro.
