Artist Statement

As a proud palawa woman with strong connections to my ancestral home of tebrakunna in the north-east of Tasmania, my art practice acts to develop a visual language around personal and hidden histories.

Working in sculpture, installation and filmic art, my work explores issues around Aboriginal identity and heritage, racism, resistance and survival. Objects of my material culture such as bull kelp, shells and string contribute to my ongoing artistic investigations into the impact of Colonisation, acting as signifiers of endurance and resilience. By reimagining cultural artefacts I am responding to repressed historical encounters in order to empower Indigenous experience.

My practice is centred around reclaiming and reconnecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities whose sense of self and relationship to culture, the land, the ancestors and country still hold strong.

I make these works to assert my sovereignty.

 

 

Artist Bio & CV

Mandy Quadrio was born in Melbourne, Australia. Her sculptural art and interactive works generate alternative political and social dialogue against a background of contested Australian histories. Using found objects and items of her material culture, through her work she achieves public and personal meaning through the politics of their material. Mandy graduated from a Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in 2016. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2017.

 

Mandy Quadrio 

Born Melbourne, Australia

Mob/Country: Pairabeena clan, Tebrakunna, North-east Tasmania

 

Education

2018 – PhD candidate, Queensland College of Arts (QCA), Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland

2017 – Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) 1st Class, QCA, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland

2014 – 2016 Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art (C.A.I.A.), Queensland College of Art (QCA), Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland

2013 – Certificate III in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts, Southbank Institute of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland

2002 – 2007 Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology), University of Queensland (partial completion)

 

Exhibitions

2018  Finalist Hatched, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth

2018  (Upcoming) Speaking Beyond the Vitrine, Solo Exhibition, Metro Arts, Brisbane

2018  Continuing Culture, Maiwar Festival, Art Space Vitrines, Queen & Edward Street, Elizabeth & Edward Streets, Brisbane City , Brisbane City Council

2017  Flying Arts Exhibition, Judith Wright Centre, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane

2017  Continuum, Queensland College of Art Honours graduate showcase, Brisbane

2016  Sculpture 16, Queensland College of Art graduate showcase, Brisbane

2016  (Contributed to) Art of the Skins, Possum Skin Cloak Project, State Library of Queensland

2016  A Unified Field, Art from the Margins, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane

2016  Kultcha, Jugglers Artspace, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane

2015  Blak History Month, St Andrews War Memorial Hospital, Brisbane

2014  Away from Country, Project Gallery, QCA, Brisbane Link

2011  Finalist, Moreton Bay Regional Art Awards, Brisbane

 

Awards

2017  Griffith University Medal for Outstanding Academic Excellence

2017  St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital Award for Artistic Merit, Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours)

 

Collections

St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

 

Public Art

2018  Continuing Culture, Maiwar Festival, Art Space Vitrines, Queen & Edward Street, Elizabeth & Edward Streets, Brisbane City , Brisbane City Council

2017  Challenging the Aesthetics of Mythic Identity, Queensland College of Art Undercroft, Griffith University, Brisbane