Hossein Valamanesh combines cultural elements from two countries: his native Iran and Australia. The result is sculptural and installation-based work relating to memory, cultural dislocation, loss, and the progression of time. The work, simultaneously strong and subtle, and occasionally playful, has gentle and poetic resonances.
Hossein Valamanesh graduated from the School of Fine Art Painting in Tehran in 1970. He immigrated to Australia in 1973, arriving in Perth and travelling to Central Australia for four months, where he worked with Aboriginal children. In 1975, he began further studies in visual arts at the South Australian School of Art and, since graduating, has exhibited frequently in Australia and overseas, including Germany, Poland and Japan.
Hossein has completed a number of major public art projects in Australia and Japan, most notably for the Tachikawa Project, an urban precinct in Tokyo featuring 110 works by 90 major sculptors. In 1999, he collaborated with Angela Valamanesh to create the Memorial to the Great Irish Famine, An Gorta Mor, at Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney. He was one of the international artists invited to participate in the 2003 Echigo-Tsumari Necklace project organised by Art Front Gallery in Tokyo. Hossein has received numerous awards, including a fellowship residency in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (1991) and, more recently, an Australia Council Fellowship. An Art & Australia monograph on his work, written by Paul Carter, was published in 1996. Two years later he won the Grand Prize at the 1998 Dacca Biennale in Bangladesh.
In mid-2001, 'Hossein Valamanesh: A Survey’ was held at the Art Gallery of South Australia; the accompanying catalogue contained essays by Sarah Thomas, Ian North and Paul Carter. In February 2002, 'Tracing the Shadow: Hossein Valamanesh’ was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Hossein’s work is included in most major public art collections in Australia. In 2006 he was living and working in Adelaide.
- Writers:
- Murray-Cree, Laura
- Date written:
- 2006
- Last updated:
- 2011
