John Barbour
Australia Council for the Arts Residency
1998
John Barbour was a Dutch artist who lived and worked in Australia. John’s work engages with ideas of human frailty and fallibility through the use of lowly and humble materials like cardboard, torn paper, Styrofoam and stained cloth. In electing to pursue the transient, the accidental, the torn and unravelled, John brings to our attention the fallibility and precariousness of existence in works of thought-provoking ambiguity and ambivalence.
John was a senior academic in the Architecture and Design School at the University of South Australia, and his artistic practice spanned more than three decades. His last solo exhibition was Infinite Thanks at Yuill|Crowley, Sydney in 2011. Other exhibitions include Work for Now, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide (2010) and Tribute (A Bibliography for Bees), Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA), Adelaide (2006). His work was also shown in Interesting Times: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art, MCA, Sydney (2005) and the São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2002). The Australian Experimental Art Foundation published a monograph on his work, Hard/Soft, in 2011. His work is held in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Queensland Art Gallery; Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; as well as private and university collections in Australia.
Australia Council for the Arts
Since 1992, the Australia Council for the Arts has partnered with Acme to provide London work/live residency opportunities for Australian visual artists. These residencies are located at Acme's Fire Station in Poplar, E14. Application and selection is undertaken directly by the Australia Council for the Arts.
For more information visit australiacouncil.gov.au
