Name

Russell Craig

Culture

Australian

Gender

Male

Birth date

1953

Birth place

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia View on map Close map

Occupations

Artist (painter) | Painter | Printmaker

Summary

Worked: Australia (QLD). Lithographs, Screenprints

NGA IRN

23215

Context

Australia

Web

http://www.russellcraig.com.au

Biography

DipAd Caulfield IT DipEd State Coll Vic FRMIT Tamarind Master Printer USA MVA Griff

Craig's work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, and is included in the collections of the Queensland Art Gallery, Darwin Museums and Art Galleries board - permanent collection, Australian Embassy art Collection, Vietnam; Central Academy of Fine Arts art collection, Beijing; Griffith University art collection and the Brisbane Civic Art Gallery and Museum collection, as well as a numerous regional galleries in Queensland.

He is an art educator teaching as a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art (drawing & printmaking) at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. His area of printmaking specialty is lithography as taught by the Tamarind Institute , USA. His teaching experience has covered tertiary undergraduate and post-graduate supervision.

Craig commenced his art training in the early 1970's in Melbourne at the Caulfield Institute of Technology and a postgraduate fellowship year in painting at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Directly after his RMIT training he completed a postgraduate Diploma of Education at the State College of Victoria, Hawthorn. In the early 1980's he receive a Queensland Government SARAS postgraduate scholarship that enabled him to study a master printer qualification at the prestigious Tamarind Institute, University of New Mexico, USA. He was the first Australian to be awarded this highly regarded printmaking qualification. In 2003 he completed a Masters in Visual Art qualification at Griffith University.

Artist residencies in New Caledonia, China, Vietnam and Japan assisted in the research theme of 'cultural appropriation' and presenting solo exhibitions in Australia during this period. He has visited Japan six times and as a result assisted in the several collaborative art & educational projects between Griffith University and various Japanese art universities. In October 2011, Craig was invited to participate in a residency with the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts (Geidai). At the conclusion of the residency, he exhibited his work in a group exhibition at the esprit GST sightseeing Art Project hosted by Geidai at the Sumida Riverside Gallery, Tokyo.

Craig's most recent solo exhibitions include Mana, held at the Brisbane Powerhouse in October 2009; Objects of Navigation , Fortyfivedownstairs Gallery, Melbourne, 2010; Altered States, at the Redcliffe City Art Gallery in December 2011; Slipstream, an exhibition held at the Redlands Art Gallery, Cleveland from 3 November to 8 December, 2013; and Five to One, POP Gallery, presented from 22 June to 3 July 2016, in Woollongabba, Brisbane. This latest exhibition features large charcoal drawings, surfboards inlaid with printed images and large digital prints. These works reflect on the beauty of our natural world as well as the mystery of the subconscious through hybrid images and marine forms designed to trigger the viewer's imagination.

In February 2014, Craig presented a solo exhibition in the art project "Beneath the Surface" at the Crane International Project Space in Philadelphia, USA. His exhibition was titled " Subterranean" and it featured large digital prints referencing marine 'scapes' and imagined beings from the subconscious.

In 2015, Craig contributed to two international exhibitions. The first was an exchange exhibition with printmakers from Wales and Australia and the second was a large printmaking group show titled"Body Politic" presented again at the Crane International Project Space in Philadelphia. He was also selected for a group Printmaking exhibition titled "Mirror Image: Prints and Plates" presented by the Gympie Regional Gallery in April/June 2015; "Largesse" group print exhibition, Pop gallery Woollongabba, February 2016 and "Women of substance" Print exhibition White box gallery, QCA South bank Brisbane, March 2016. In May 2019, Craig exhibited a series of drawings at the Rashinban Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo . The exhibition was entitled “Yokohama Rain – Japan revisited”.

[courtesy of the artist, July 2019]