Tom Nicholson
  • Tom Nicholson, 'Untitled wall drawing', 2005-2018, Pencil on wall, Dimensions variable. On loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2013. Realised with Lauren Burrow, Tristen Harwood, Warraba Weatherall, Peter Kozak. Photograph: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Untitled wall drawing', 2005-2018, Pencil on wall, Dimensions variable. On loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2013. Photograph: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Untitled wall drawing', 2005-2018, Pencil on wall, Dimensions variable. On loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2013. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Untitled wall drawing', 2005-2018, Pencil on wall, Dimensions variable. On loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2013. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Gorge photograph, 13 September 1939 #1, #2, #3', 2018, Charcoal on paper, Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Drawings and correspondence'. Installation view: IMA Brisbane, 2018. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny', 2014, 12 cartoons (charcoal drawings perforated). Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny', 2014, 12 cartoons (charcoal drawings perforated). Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Drawings and correspondence'. Installation view: IMA Brisbane, 2018. Photograph: Christian Capurro. In view: 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny', 2014, Wall drawing, and 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny', 2014, 12 cartoons (charcoal drawings perforated).

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Drawings and correspondence'. Installation view: IMA Brisbane, 2018. Photograph: Christian Capurro. In view: 'Drawings and Correspondence 9', 2008-2011, 'Drawings and Correspondence 1', 2008-2011, and 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny' (detail), 2014, wall drawing.

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny', 2014, Wall drawing created through pouncing with cheesecloth full of ground charcoal, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny' (detail), 2014, Wall drawing created through pouncing with cheesecloth full of ground charcoal, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny' (detail), 2014, Wall drawing created through pouncing with cheesecloth full of ground charcoal, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Tom Nicholson, 'Lines that could be scars', 2015, 24 dry-point etchings, with burnishing, printed from four copper plates, drawn on the plates by the artist and printed by APW Senior Printer Martin King and APW Printer Simon White at Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne. 31.5 cm x 25.5 cm each, A/P in an edition of 10. Collection of Clare Land. Photography: Christian Capurro

  • Greg Lehman and Tom Nicholson, 'Interview', 2015, 2-part offset printed poster and booklet (reprinted 2018). Designed by Ziga Testen. Photography: Christian Capurro

/

Tom Nicholson

Drawings and correspondence

24 March–02 June 201824 Mar–02 Jun 2018

#TomNicholson

Tom Nicholson’s solo exhibition surveys the central role drawing plays in his engagement with contemporary political realities in Australia and beyond. The show presents works from 2005 to 2018, focusing on both the histories and possibilities of drawing, and its relationship to writing. Here, the line is a tool for writing, drawing and redrawing borders, evoking little known histories and intersections, and expanding into the space of possibility through abstraction.

The exhibition is curated by IMA’s Executive Directors Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh. It is accompanied by the first monograph of Nicholson’s work, Lines towards Another, edited by Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes, and co-published by the IMA, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and Sternberg Press.

Tony Birch, Bridget Crone, Jacqueline Doughty, Anthony Gardner, Anneke Jaspers, Ryan Johnston, John Mateer, Shelley McSpedden, Mihnea Mircan, Grace Samboh, Ann Stephen, and the editors themselves give compelling insight into Nicholson’s diverse material approach, political practice, and historical context. Lines towards Another is available in the IMA Gallery Shop.

Curated By
  • Aileen Burns & Johan Lundh
Artist Bio
Tom Nicholson

Nicholson lives and works in Melbourne. Recent exhibitions include Superposition: Art of Equilibrium and Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018); I was born in Indonesia, Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne; The National: New Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (both 2017); Maju Kena, Mundur Kena (Neither forward nor back): Learning in The Present, 16th Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia (2015); Cartoons for Joseph Selleny, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2014); He is a lecturer at Monash Art Design and Architecture, Monash University, and is represented by Milani Gallery.

The IMA acknowledges, thanks, and pays our deepest respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that we work with and the Country we work on. 

0