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Artist Statement:
As you can see on my website:
http://www.johndahlsen.com , I
make my art from found
objects, mainly plastics,
sometimes driftwood and
rubber, which I find on the
beaches of the eastern
Australian seaboard.
My recent work has resulted in
assemblage wall works,
sculpture, installations,
photography, painting and
public art projects.
The work has an equally strong
environmental and purely
aesthetic concern and is a
direct reflection of
contemporary society.
I show through my work the
value of beauty, the need for
environmental awareness and
the amazing capacity we all
have to experience deep shifts
in our perception.
My creative medium shifted
from painting to working with
found objects as a result of
an artistic accident during
the mid 1990’s. I was
collecting driftwood, on a
remote Victorian Coastline,
with the intention of making
furniture and stumbled upon
vast amounts of plastic ocean
debris. This whole new palette
of colour and shape revealing
itself to me immediately
affected me; I’d never seen
such hues and forms before.
Since then for approximately
10 years, I scoured Australian
beaches for found objects,
much of which I found as
washed up ‘ocean litter’. I
have since discovered this is
a ...
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Artist Galleries:
John Dahlsen is represented
by various commercial
galleries within Australia.
He regularly exhibits his work
in public institutions and
within the regional gallery
network....
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Artist Reviews:
Selected Bibliography:
John Dahlsen - Book - "Art
Insights" Book - Volume 1 2009
Fantastic Recycled Plastic -
Book - Lark Books publication
Autumn 2009
Gold Coast Bulletin - 12
September 2009
The Northern Star - 12
September 2009
Gold Coast Bulletin - 10
September 2009
Canberra Times 9 August 2009
Sublime Magazine - Mid
September Feature article
"John ...
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Collections:
Represented:
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney,
Australia.
Victorian College of the Arts
Collection.
Artbank, Sydney Australia.
Miniature Museum of
Contemporary Art - Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
University of Western
Australia
Curtin University, Western
Australia.
Myer/Bailleiu collection.
Kerry Stokes collection.
de Rothschild Collection.
Thomas & Esther Van Vliet
collection.
Wesfarmers Collection.
Tweed River Regional Art ...
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Commissions:
Nationally regarded in
Australia, as an award winning
artist, John Dahlsen won the
prestigious Wynne prize at the
Art Gallery of NSW in 2000 and
was selected as a finalist in
2003 and again in 2004. In
2006 he was a finalist in the
Sulman Award at the Art
Gallery...
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Exhibitions for John Dahlsen:
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John Dahlsen is based in Byron Bay Australia. He won the prestigious Wynne prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2000 and was again a finalist in 2003 and 2004. In 2006 he was also a finalist in the Sulman award at the Art Gallery of NSW. He has won other significant acquisitive and non-acquisitive art awards, including a mixed media/new media award at the 2003 Florence Biennial.
John studied at the Victorian College of the Arts and has lectured at various universities and secondary schools from 1980 – 2005. He has also been an invited speaker at art, architectural and environmental symposiums in Australia and internationally, including the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, which coincided with an exhibition of his work there.
For 25 years he has had regular solo and group exhibitions in Australia, in both commercial and regional galleries and internationally, in USA and Europe, where he is also represented in major public and private collections.
In August 2004, Dahlsen represented Australia at the Athens Olympics of Visual Arts and in October 2004, he became the first Australian artist, (he joins such renowned artists as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente and Damien Hirst) to be commissioned by global vodka producer Absolut, to create a major public artwork “Absolut Dahlsen” which was unveiled at Sculpture by the Sea, in Sydney Australia.
John’s art has been written about in major Australian and international newspapers. His work has been featured in many magazines and in International Art publications. Television includes coverage on all Australian channels and many international programmes. He currently has a major presentation and interview on ABC online.
He had a major solo exhibition of his work at the Tweed Regional Art Gallery in February 2005 titled “Installations and Assemblages”. He is also currently curating as well as participating in an exhibition at the Samuel Dorsky Museum in New York State in the USA, which is running from the 1st July – till Sept 18th 2005.
“My creative medium shifted from painting to working with found objects as a result of an artistic accident during the mid 1990’s. I was collecting driftwood, on a remote Australian Coastline and stumbled upon vast amounts of plastic ocean debris. This whole new palette of colour and shape revealing itself to me immediately had an affect; I had never seen such hues and forms before.
The central concerns of my work are with contemporary art practice and working with found objects, carefully selected and handpicked by myself from along the Australian Coastline. The unabated dumping of tonnes of plastics is expressed in my assemblages, paintings, sculptures, prints and installations. These plastics, as I sort them, take on an indefinable beauty, which fascinates me.
My other recent artistic activity is with large-scale works on canvas and paper. I first initiated this in 1999 with photographs taken from above – a bird’s eye view of the found plastics and since then have developed these into larger scale works.
I have also developed new works using recycled plastic bags as the primary medium. My recycled plastic bag artwork is a departure from the more recognizable assemblage works in which I used plastics and other detritus collected from the Eastern seaboard, “Thong Totems” which won the Wynne Prize in 2000 being a good example. With this recycled plastic bag work, apart from wishing to express obvious environmental messages, I am particularly interested in the brilliance of the colours and textures available to me in working with this medium. I am constantly surprised to see the variations in these plastics; very much like how I am intrigued by the beach found objects I have collected over the years.
Most importantly for me, apart from my commitment as a colourist amongst other artistic concerns, the assembled objects in their various configurations as paintings, sculptures, prints or installations, bring to life my commitment as an artist to express contemporary social, spiritual and environmental concerns.”
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