Shaun Gladwell b. 1972

  • Artist (Video Artist),
  • Artist (Performance Artist),
  • Artist (Sculptor),
  • Artist (Painter)
Shaun Gladwell is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. Working across video, performance, painting and sculpture, Gladwell has exhibited extensively both in Australia and overseas. His solo and collaborative works critique personal history, memory and contemporary culture.

Shaun Gladwell critiques personal history, memory and contemporary culture in solo and collaborative works that utilise performance, video, painting and sculpture. He completed a Bachelor of Visual Art (Hons) at The University of Sydney in 1996, followed by a Masters of Visual Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. In 2001, he was awarded a three-month Australia Council residency at the Cité International des Arts, Paris. An Anne and Gordon Samstag International Scholarship enabled him to undertake associated research at Goldsmiths College, London (2001-02). During this time, he was included in the exhibition, 'The Mind is a Horse’, at Bloomberg Space, London.

In 2002, Gladwell was commissioned to present a broadcast work for the Netherlands TV network 4DTV, and was included in Iain Borden’s first theoretical survey on skateboarding culture. Recent exhibitions include 'Primavera 2003: Exhibition of Young Australian Artists’, at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art; 'Vacation: Projection Series 7’, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, NZ (2004-05); The Anne Landa Award at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; 'Shaun Gladwell: Various Roles’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and 'Not Worried: New Art From Australia’, Raid Projects, Los Angeles (all 2005).

Also during 2005, Gladwell completed commissions for Campbelltown Regional Art Gallery (now Campbelltown Arts Centre); for 'Vanishing Point’, an Experimenta project that toured nationally and internationally; and 'Art Connections’, an international exchange program initiated by the Goethe Institut. He participated in 'Space Invaders’ at the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland and the Third International Film and Video Festival, Museum of New Art, Detroit, United States.

Shaun Gladwell was represented in the 2005 Yokohama Triennale; Biennales in Busan (South Korea) and São Paulo (Brazil) in 2006; and exhibited in Tokyo, Bangkok, Rome and Oslo following a residency at Tokyo Wonder Site in Shibuya, Japan. In 2007 he was selected to participate in Robert Storr’s exhibition at the 52nd Venice Biennale, and in 2009 he exhibited MADDESTMAXIMVS at the Australian Pavilion at Venice.

In the following years he continued to work in both videos and in creating virtual reality simulations. In 2019 he was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition, Shaun Gladwell:Pacific Undertow, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Writers:
Murray-Cree, Laura
Date written:
2006
Last updated:
2008