Tony Albert (born 1981) is a contemporary Australian artist working in a wide range of mediums including

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

and

mixed media In visual art, mixed media describes work of art, artwork in which more than one Art medium, medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different List of art media, media. M ...

. His work engages with political, historical and cultural Aboriginal and Australian history, and his fascination with kitsch “Aboriginalia".

Biography

Albert was born in 1981 in

Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its Tropical North Queensland, trop ...

. In 2004 he graduated from the Queensland College of Art,

Griffith University Griffith University is a public university, public research university in South East Queensland on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of Australia. The university was founded in 1971, but was not officially opened until 1975. Griffith ...

, Brisbane, with a degree in Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art. Albert's family is from Cardwell, Queensland and he is a descendant of the Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-Yalanji peoples. Albert was a founding member of the urban-based Indigenous art collective ProppaNOW founded in 2004. ProppaNOW also included artists Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd, Vernon Ah Kee, Fiona Foley, Bianca Beetson, and Andrea Fisher.

Work

Like Bell and Ah Kee, the use of text is essential to Albert's practice. ''Headhunter'' (2007), an installation consisted of various objects Albert had been collecting for several years, portrays the past racism in Australia and puts emphasis on "the commodification of Aboriginal people for consumption by the non-Indigenous population, at a time when actual engagements with Aboriginal people were rare and predominantly paternalistic." The application of text can also be seen in Albert's photographic work such as ''Hey ya! (Shake it like a Polaroid picture)'' (2007).

Awards and commissions

In 2014 Albert won first prize in the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award with his work ''We can be Heroes'', prompted by the 2012 shooting by police of two Aboriginal teenagers in Kings Cross. Albert's was the first photographic work to win the prize. In 2015, Albert was commissioned by the City of Sydney to create '' Yininmadyemi - Thou didst let fall'', a public work for Hyde Park, Sydney. The work serves as a memorial to Aboriginal military history and features four large upright bullets and shell casings. He was the

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

finalist in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

and

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

Exhibitions

Albert's work has been the subject of nine solo exhibitions and over fifty group exhibitions. In June 2024, Albert's work ''Crop Circles In Yoga #5'' as well as his large-scale artwork ''BEAM ME UP The Art of Abduction'' were exhibited in Melbourne's Federation Square as part of 'The Blak Infinite' program at the 2024 RISING: festival in Melbourne.

Collections

* National Gallery of Victoria (NGV),

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/28138/, Retrieved 2024-06-15.

References

External links

Official siteTony Albert
at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne
Tony Albert
at the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...

Tony Albert at UnDisclosed
{{DEFAULTSORT:Albert, Tony People from Townsville 21st-century Australian photographers 1981 births Living people Griffith University alumni 21st-century Australian painters 21st-century Australian male artists Photographers from Queensland Indigenous Australian artists Archibald Prize finalists Mixed-media artists Australian male painters