Design and Art Australia Online

Yamatji/Nyoongar artist Glenn Pilkington was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1981. He spent most of his childhood in the Kimberley region before his family moved to Bunbury in 1994. He moved back to Perth in 2000 and began developing his art practice soon after. In 2008 he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Edith Cowan University, majoring in Printmaking.
The contrast between his childhood in remote country in the north of the state, and the urban environment of Perth is a foundational concern for Pilkington. His work derives from his reflections upon the impact of this social and environmental transition upon his subjectivity as an Indigenous Australian. He writes:
“Coming from strong Aboriginal and European heritage, my work explores displacement in both the emotional and physical context, loss of connections to both places and people in an attempt to place myself as an individual… Through the investigation of spaces and places, both natural and urban, my work explores the connection with country that I feel as an Aboriginal Australian living and working within an urban environment. The aesthetic of my work represents the peace I have trained myself to feel in the urban world in direct contrast to the years I have spent in 'traditional country’.” (artist’s statement, Mossenson Galleries 2006).

Working predominantly in photomedia, Pilkington makes use of third generation digital technology to create images of urban environments which are then subjected to a studio-based digital editing process. This process usually involves the erosion of recognisable content to varying degrees, so that an abstracted pictorial structure emerges. Pilkington’s editing often obscures the spatial logic of the original scene such that aspects of the imagery are fragmented, mirrored and repeated. The urban settings are thereby transformed into shapes, vectors and planes that find an aesthetic harmony through symmetry and geometric patterning, or by centering points of curiosity that may have been marginal in the original image.

These processes are underpinned by Pilkington’s explorations of the experience of travelling between the country and the city, tracing the passing of time, finding the familiar in the foreign, and sensing emotive resonances within spaces that echo places or moments from the past. Sarah Jane Pell, writing in the Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award 2008 Catalogue, suggests that “by using digital editing to re-present the urban terrain as an abstract topography, Pilkington emulates and respects his traditional relationship to country”.

Pilkington has exhibited throughout Australia since 2006. He was a finalist in the Ergon Energy Central Queensland Art Award (2006), the Hutchins Art Prize (2007) and the Sunshine Coast Art Prize (2007). In 2007 he won The Linden Award, which is part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, and in 2008 he was shortlisted for both the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and the Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award. Exhibitions have included the solo show 'Urban Country’ at Mossenson Galleries in Melbourne (2007), ’30 Under 30: A New Generation of Indigenous Artists’ which was shown at Mossenson Galleries in Melbourne and Perth (2008), and 'Innovators 3’ at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne (2008).

Writers:

Fisher, Laura
giseger

Date written:

2009

Last updated:

2014