Objects to Live by: The Art of John Meade

Curator: Zara Stanhope

10 September - 23 October 2010
Central Galleries

JOHN MEADE
Born, Ballarat, 1956: currently lives and works Melbourne, Australia

Employing the rigours of geometry and soft organic form, John Meade works in an intuitive way to materialise his ideas, creating tightly orchestrated pieces that explore the metaphysical, the surreal and the erotic. Tapping into the real and the subconscious, playing with scale and expectation, Meade uses minimalism and messiness, the deliberate and the accidental, to explore extremes of form and intensities of emotion. The wishbone-like Progeny is born to breathe hope and life back into a world darkened by wretchedness. Like striding legs, its sweeping curves trace the contours of a slow and steady inhalation; a full drawback of breath that pulls in drifting whirls of fresh air to create a moment of respite, a breathing space where hope returns renewed.

Excerpt: Johanna Fahey: Incident in the Museum 2: John Meade
Monash University Museum of Art, (ex.cat.), 2006

Awards and commissions include: Aqualung, Victoria Harbour, Melbourne, installed 2006; 2004 recipient of the Anne and Gordon Samstag Award, completing a year of study in New York City; Asialink residency, India, 1998-99, and Mean Yellow, Victorian Arts Centre forecourt, commissioned by the Melbourne Festival, 2000.

Selected Recent Solo Exhibitions:
2005: Aftermath, Sutton Galley, Melbourne; Incident in the Museum 2, Monash University Museum of Art, Clayton: 2004: Dreamer, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne: 2001: Propulsion, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

Selected Recent Group Exhibitions:
2006: 21st Century Modern, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, AGSA; 2005: Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture (finalist), Federation Square, Melbourne; 2003: This was the future...Australian Sculpture of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and Today, Heide Museum of Modern Art; Orifice, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, curated by Juliana Engberg

Selected Collections
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and private collections

John Meade is represented in Australia by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia