The exhibition features work from Jan Nelson, Natasha Bieniek, Patricia Piccinini, Juan Ford, Petrina Hicks, Ron Mueck, Yanni Floros, Sam Jinks, Michael Peck and Robin Eley.
Jan Nelson was born in Melbourne. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1983 and has been exhibited her work in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia since that time including at the MCA, Sydney, National Gallery of Victoria, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.
Born in Melbourne, Natasha Bieniek began her formal artistic training at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002. Bieniek’s When the music’s over (2006) won the Nino Sanciolo Art Prize, a painting scholarship to study at the Accademia d’Arte in Florence, where she learnt the ancient technique of egg tempera.
Born in Bendigo, Victoria, Sam Jinks’ work can be found in various public collections that include the Kiran Nader Museum of Art, Dehli, India and the Museo Escultura Figurativa Internacional Contemporaenea (MEFIC), Portugal.
Petrina Hicks has exhibited widely throughout Australia, and internationally, including Germany, Spain, France, Italy, USA and Japan. Her work was selected for screening in the 17th International Videobrasil (2011) and featured in Pingyao International Photography Festival, China (2010).
Yanni Floros is an Adelaide based artist who trained at the National Art School in Sydney graduating as a sculpture major. Since then he has shown his work both locally and internationally in Berlin, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Patricia Piccinini was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in Canberra. She received a BFA from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne in 1991. In 1994 she initiated The Basement Project Gallery in Melbourne, which she coordinated until 1996. Her 2003 exhibition We Are Family represented Australia at the 50th Venice Biennale.
Robin Eley studied Fine Arts at Westmont College, USA and began his career as a professional illustrator. Eley was a finalist in the Eutick Memorial Still Life Prize in 2010 and his work was Highly Commended in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize in 2010 and 2011.
Juan Ford received a Master of Art, by research, from RMIT University in 2001. His many commissions include the National Gallery of Victoria’s interactive work You, me and the flock for Melbourne Now 2013/2014 and a project for Hotel de Immigrantes, a project in Manifesta 9, the European Biennale in 2012.
Ron Mueck grew up in Melbourne and began a career in puppetry and special-effects based in the US and then London. In the mid-1990s Charles Saatchi commissioned four major works including Dead dad, which were exhibited in Saatchi’s exhibition ‘Sensation’ at the Royal Academy, London and which travelled to Berlin and Brooklyn.
Born in Melbourne in 1977, Michael Peck has a Bachelor of Fine Art (honours) (Painting) from Monash University. He has exhibited as a solo artist since 1998, when he won the National Gallery of Victoria’s Trustees Award.
In the flesh is an enthralling and immersive experience of contemporary art that confronts the concept of humanness and the experiences of consciousness and emotion. Featuring ten Australian artists including Jan Nelson, Patricia Piccinini, Ron Mueck and Michael Peck, the exhibition explores themes of intimacy, empathy, transience, transition, vulnerability, alienation, restlessness, reflection, mortality and acceptance.
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