Luke Willis Thompson
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Luke Willis Thompson (born 1988) is a New Zealand artist of Fijian and European descent, currently working primarily in film. He lives in London.


Education

Thompson was born in
Auckland, New Zealand Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...
. He completed a BFA (2009) and MFA (2010) at the
Elam School of Fine Arts The Elam School of Fine Arts, founded by John Edward Elam, is part of the University of Auckland Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries at the University of Auckland. It offered the first Bachelor of ...
,
University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...
, and studied at the
Städelschule The Städelschule, full name Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from around 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 ...
, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste,
Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
, in 2013–2014.


Career

Since graduating from Elam School of Fine Art, Thompson has exhibited extensively in New Zealand and internationally. Solo exhibitions at public galleries include ''Luke Willis Thompson: Misadventure'' at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2016), ''Autoportrait'' at the
Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park, To ...
and ''Luke Willis Thompson'' at the
Adam Art Gallery The Adam Art Gallery (in Māori language, Māori: ''Te Pātaka Toi'') is a purpose-built arts gallery located in the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand. History On 15 July 1997, Jenny Harper and Tin ...
(2018). His work has been included in major art festivals and group exhibition, including the 2015
New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...
Triennial ''Surround Audience'', the 8th Asia-Pacific Triennial at the
Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galle ...
(2016), La Biennale de Montréal 2016, and ''Field Guide'', the inaugural exhibition at the
Remai Modern Remai Modern is a public art museum in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The art museum is situated along the west bank of the South Saskatchewan River, at the River Landing development in Central Business District, Saskatoon, Saskatoon's Central Bu ...
.


Awards and residencies

In 2014 Thompson was awarded the
Walters Prize The Walters Prize is New Zealand's largest contemporary art prize. Held biennially since 2002, the prize aims to 'make contemporary art a more widely recognised and debated feature of cultural life'. The prize is named in honour of New Zealand ab ...
for his work '. In 2016-2017 Thompson held the Chisenhale Gallery Create Residency at London's Chisenhale Gallery. During this time he developed two new silent film works: ''Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries'' (2016) and ''Autoportrait'' (2017). In 2018 Thompson was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, for ''Autoportrait''. He was announced as the winner of the prize on 17 May 2018. In April 2018 Thompson was announced as a finalist in the Tate's
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...
, also for ''Autoportrait''. He is the second New Zealander to be nominated for the award, following photographer Boyd Webb in 1988.


Significant works


''Untitled'' (2012)

In 2012, a large-scale sculptural ready-made work by Thompson, ''Untitled'' (2012) was included in a group exhibition titled ''Between Memory and Trace'' at
Te Tuhi Te Tuhi, formerly known as Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Te Tuhi - The Mark, Te Tuhi Gallery and Pakuranga Arts Society is a public contemporary art gallery situated in Pakuranga, Auckland, New Zealand. Managed by Te Tuhi Contemporary Art Trust a ...
Centre for the Arts in
Pakuranga Pakuranga is an eastern suburb of Auckland, in northern New Zealand. Pakuranga covers a series of low ridges and previously swampy flats, now drained, that lie between the Pakuranga Creek and Tamaki River, two estuary, estuarial arms of the ...
, Auckland. Shortly after, the work was shown at the
Auckland Art Gallery Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions. Set be ...
as part of the 5th Auckland Triennial, and acquired for the gallery's permanent collection. The work consists of three roller doors once owned by Manurewa businessman Bruce Emery. On 26 January 2006 Emery saw 15 year-old Pihema Cameron and friend tagging the doors; Emery chased the two teenagers down and stabbed and killed Cameron with a fishing knife.


''inthisholeonthisislandwhereiam'' (2012/2014)

Originally presented at Hopkinson Mossman in Auckland, ' has no physical manifestation. Instead, participants were collected by taxi from the gallery, taken to a suburban home (later revealed to be the artist's own family home), where they were invited to move through the house but not enter the bedrooms, and then returned to the gallery. The work was restaged for the Walters Prize exhibition.


''Sucu Mate/Born Dead'' (2016)

In January–February 2016 Thompson presented a sculptural ready-made work ''Sucu Mate/Born Dead'' (2016) at Hopkinson Mossman in Auckland. The work consists of nine headstones that were given on loan to Thompson for two years from the Balawa Estate cemetery in
Lautoka Lautoka (, ) is the second largest List of cities and towns in Fiji#List, metropolitan area in Fiji. It is on the west coast of the island of Viti Levu, in the Ba Province of the Western Division, Fiji, Western Division. Lying in the heart of ...
,
Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...
. When the work was shown later that year at the Institute of Modern Art in
Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
, the gallery said:
This cemetery contains the graves of colonial migrant labourers from India, China, and elsewhere in Asia, who were indentured to sugarcane plantations. The cemetery is segregated along racial and social hierarchies. Colonisers’ graves occupy the upper part of the graveyard, which is set on a hill. Indigenous people are buried in the central section—including the artist’s own grandmother—while migrant labourers are interred at the bottom in an area which floods heavily. Thompson worked with the Fiji museum and the minister of culture in Fiji, to obtain permission to excavate the remains of damaged headstones and to repair their sites of excavation. Sucu Mate/Born Dead brings attention to the complicated historical interrelationships between cultures in the Pacific region, and highlights broader histories of exploitation central to colonisation.
''Sucu Mate / Born Dead'' was also shown in the 8th Asia-Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2016.


''Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries'' (2016)

''Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries'' is a silent film shot on 16mm black and white film. Commissioned by the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, the work was completed when Thompson was artist in residence at Chisenhale Gallery. The film shows consecutive images of two young black men in portrait view (face and upper torso), wearing white dress shirts, filmed in front of a plain block-work wall. The films use the technology and aesthetics of Andy Warhol's ''Screen Tests'', short films made using Kodak Tri-X 16mm film stock, of visitors to Warhol's studio
The Factory The Factory was Andy Warhol's art studio in Manhattan, New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famous for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities, and ...
between 1964 and 1966. Each visitor was invited to pose for the duration of a single 100 ft roll of film. Thompson's subjects however are the descendants of women who died in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
as the result of police brutality. 'Brandon' is the grandson of Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce, who was shot by Metropolitan Police in 1985 when they raided her home looking for her son
Michael Groce Michael Groce is a poet and community worker. His mother, Cherry Groce, was shot and paralysed by police during a dawn raid on her home starting the 1985 Brixton riot in London, England. He is now a published poet, having won the Cheltenham P ...
. The shooting, which left Dorothy Groce paralysed, led to the
1985 Brixton riot The Brixton riot of 1985 started on 28 September in Lambeth in South London. It was the second major riot that the area had witnessed in the space of four years, the last in 1981. It was sparked by the shooting of Dorothy "Cherry" Groce by the ...
. She died of complications from her injuries in 2011. 'Graeme' is the son of Joy Gardner, a 40-year-old Jamaican mature student living as an undocumented migrant in London who died after police raided her home intending to deport her in 1983. Gardner was bound and gagged by police and died four days later of cardiac arrest. None of the officers involved in these women's deaths were convicted.


''Autoportrait'' (2017)

''Autoportrait'' is a silent portrait of Diamond Reynolds (who filmed and live-streamed the moments after the fatal shooting of her partner
Philando Castile On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African American man, was fatally shot during a traffic stop by police officer Jeronimo Yanez of the St. Anthony police department in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. About 9 p.m. ...
by police in July 2016) shot on 35mm black and white film. The work was completed when Thompson was artist in residence at Chisenhale Gallery, where the film debuted. Thompson describes the work as a 'sister-image' to Reynolds' own video, which has been viewed millions of times around the world. In an interview with Thompson for
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
about the work, Hettie Judah wrote:
“Diamond,” says the artist, “needed to be interpolated into cinematic history – the history of cinema owes black life something.” Autoportrait is intended as a counter to the cameraphone footage Reynolds broadcast on Facebook – which was, and continues to be, widely shared. “She is recognised,” Thompson reminds me, “for the worst day of her life.” He wanted to provide her with an alternative.


''How Long?'' (2017)

In February 2018 Thompson opened his first public gallery solo exhibition in New Zealand, at the
Adam Art Gallery The Adam Art Gallery (in Māori language, Māori: ''Te Pātaka Toi'') is a purpose-built arts gallery located in the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand. History On 15 July 1997, Jenny Harper and Tin ...
. The exhibition, titled ''Luke Willis Thompson'', features three film works: ''Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries'', ''Autoportrait'' and a new commission ''How Long?'' (2017), filmed in Fiji in December 2017.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Luke Willis 1988 births Living people New Zealand people of Fijian descent Artists from Auckland University of Auckland alumni Elam Art School alumni 21st-century New Zealand artists 21st-century New Zealand male artists Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize winners