Christian Thompson, Ellipse. C-type print, edition of 5, 100 x 100 cm, 2014.
Inaugural Te Whare Hēra artist in residence Christian Thompson (Bidjara People, Sth Australia) is now London-based. An internationally acclaimed artist, Thompson is recognised for his examination of cultural histories and issues of identity with a more specific focus on memory, gender, race, and sexuality. Thompson works across a range of media including photography, video, sculpture, performance and sound.
Christian Thompson. 2014. Photograph by Bonnie Beattie.
During his residency at Te Whare Hēra, Thompson produced Eight Limbs (2014) a series of C-type photographic prints of spiralling geometric images of Bidjara words. The Bidjara language, an indigenous Australian language, was declared extinct in the 1980's. Thompson's other residency work Refuge (2014) is a video project intended to re-energise Bidjara through the form of a modern pop song.
Thompson has a Doctorate of Philosophy (2014), and received the inaugural Charlie Perkins Scholarship at Oxford University, Britian. His work has been widely exhibited internationally and nationally and is held in major public and private collections including Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. In 2015 he was mentored by the performance artist Marina Abramovic.
For more information on Christian Thompson visit www.christianthompson.net