Brook Andrew
Brook Andrew (born 1970, Sydney, Australia) is a visual artist of Wiradjuri and Scottish descent.
Brook Andrew is a conceptually driven artist who challenges cultural and historical perception, using installation, text and image to comment on local and global issues regarding race, consumerism and history. Apart from drawing inspiration from public media and found archival collections, Brook travels nationally and internationally to work with communities and museum collections to comment and create new work reflecting objects, concepts and local thought.
His work with archival material has created debate and new thought surrounding contemporary philosophies regarding memory, its conceptual and visual potency linking local with international histories. By co-opting the tools of advertising, the media, museums and Wiradjuri language and culture, Brook Andrew’s art challenges the limitations imposed by power structures, historical amnesia, stereotyping and complicity.
Laura Murray Cree, Brook Andrew in ‘Artist Profile’. pp 50–59. Issue 11, 2010. Sydney. Australia.
He currently completed Jumping Castle War Memorial’ for the Biennale of Sydney: a work that was inspired by his research in museums and theme parks, and the collection from the Musee Des Confluence, Lyon. Brook has also recently finished a number of commissions, the first is a portrait of Professor Marcia Langton for the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, and the second is a large-scale work ‘The Cell’ commissioned by the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney.
…Andrew’s practice also reveals that while we often think of globalization as homogenizing cultures and meanings, individual perspectives remain diverse…it is [his] refusal to be didactic that underscores his maturity.
Rawling, A. Brook Andrew: Archives of the Invisible in 'Art Asia Pacific'. Issue 68 May/June 2010. New York. USA.
Brook was the recipient of the Australia Council ISCP residency, NYC 2008–09, South Project at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo residency, Santiago 2006, Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship 2001. Publications include Future Images 2010, Theme Park 2008, Current: Contemporary Art from Australia and New Zealand 2008, Eye to Eye 2007 and Hope and Peace 2005.
Brook Andrew was recently awarded a 2012 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship[1]. Worth $160,000 over two years[2] this inaugural fellowship is for artists of "outstanding talent and exceptional courage" who are "in the first five to ten years of their professional practice"[3].
Brook Andrew is a graduate of University of Western Sydney [Bachelor of Visual Arts 1993] and College of Fine Arts, University of NSW [Master of Fine Arts 1999][4].
Recent exhibitions include:
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010
The Cell. Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney. Traveling on to the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, and MONA & FOMA Festival of Music and Art, Hobart, Australia.
2009
Danger Of Authority. Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
8 Months At War. DETACHED, Hobart & University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane. Australia.
Brook Andrew: The Island. UQ Art Museum, Brisbane.
2008
BROOK ANDREW : THEME-PARK. AAMU. The Netherlands.
The Island. Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, UK.
2007
Come into the Light. Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
Brook Andrew: Eye to Eye. A survey exhibition curated by Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, touring Australian and south/south-east Asia.
2006
YOU’VEALWAYSWANTEDTOBEBLACK. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010
17th Biennale of Sydney. Curated by David Elliot, Sydney.Australia.
21st Century: Art in the First Decade. Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. Australia.
No Name Station. Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia, and Iberia Centre of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China.
Carnival. Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, N.S.W. Australia.
GRAND NORD GRAND SUD Artistes inuit et aborigines. Musée de L’Abbaye de Daoulas in co-production with Musée des Confluences, Lyon, France.
Curious Colony, a twenty first century Wunderkammer. Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, NSW. Australia.
100 Years: Highlights from The University of Queensland Art Collection, Brisbane. Australia.
Stick it! Collage in Australian art. National Gallery of Victoria. Melbourne.Australia.
2009
The Exotic Human. Other cultures as amusement. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, Holland, and Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent, Belgium.
2008
typical! Clichés of Jews and Others. The Jewish Museum, Berlin, Jewish Museum, Vienna, and Spertus Institute, Chicago. United States of America.
Half Light – Portraits of Black Australia. Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. Australia.
Lost & Found: an Archeology of the Present. TarraWarra Biennial. TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria. Australia.
2007
DE OVERKANT/DOWN-UNDER: Stichting Den Haag Sculptuur. Den Haag. The Netherlands.
The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005. National Gallery of Australia. Canberra. Australia.
Alfred Metraux : From fieldwork to Human Rights. Smithsonian Institute. National Museum of Natural History. Washington D.C. United States of America.
PRISM: CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN ART. Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation. Tokyo, Japan.
TRANS VERSA. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, Chile.
2006
Light Sensitive. Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund. National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.
Points of View: Australian Photography 1985-95. Art Gallery of NSW. Sydney, Australia.
HIGH TIDE: currents in contemporary Australasian art. National Gallery of Art, Warszawa, Poland, and Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania.
SATELLITE06. Yangshupu Rd. Pavilion. Shanghai, China: A Shanghai Biennale satellite event. China.
The Adelaide Biennial of Australia 2006: 21st Century Modern. Art Gallery of South Australia.
