Godwin Bradbeer

1950

Godwin Bradbeer is a New Zealand born artist based in Melbourne, he has been exhibiting since the early 1970?s. His continuing work endeavours a synthesis of diverse cultural attitudes and appearances exclusively within the described physiognomy of the human subject. Despite substantial experience as a photographer and a painter his most definitive practice is most frequently in various modes of drawing. In a significant respect his work seeks to examine the viability of hand rendered imagery in an age of electronic media.

Despite the singularity of his concern his work draws upon the primitive, the classical and the contemporary aesthetics of many cultures and disciplines. His compelling figurative imagery seeks to establish credible descriptions of human beauty, physical ordinariness and individual and collective tragedy.
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Godwins work is included within the collections of the Australian National Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria, The Art Gallery of N.S.W., the Art Gallery of South Australia, Parliament House, Canberra, the Archive of Humanist Art, Commonwealth Art Bank, Lim lip Museum, Korea, Korean Art Institute, the University of Western Carolina, U.S.A. and other institutional collections nationally and internationally.

Godwin Bradbeer received the Dobell Drawing Prize from the Art Gallery of NSW in 1998 and has been included in that award a further eight times. Amongst other awards received is the Popular Artist acquisitive award from the Lim Lip Museum in Korea in 2005 and the Jacaranda Drawing Prize at Grafton Regional Gallery.

The monumental ?Imago? images that dominate his current practice have in 2005 been presented in the MOA Gallery in the Heyri Art Valley in Korea, the Gong-ju International Arts Festival at the Lim Lip Museum of Contemporary, at John Batten Gallery in Hong Kong and at the Art Gallery of N.S.W. in the Dobell Drawing Prize and in the Drawing Biennalle at the Drill Hall in Canberra in 2004. ?Apologia Diptych? from the series has been acquired by the Australian National Gallery. Additionally work from the series completed an international touring circuit in 2004 that included the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and other venues in China and the UK.

Shepparton Art Gallery has presented a major survey exhibition ?Godwin Bradbeer ? The Metaphysical Body? in 2006. This exhibition is touring 8 regional galleries in Victoria and New South Wales until early in 2008. In September of 2007 Godwin will present ?Aspects of the Metaphysical Body? at Annandale Galleries in Sydney concurrently with the survey exhibition. The exhibition at Annandale presents selected recent work on paper that is allied to the current survey exhibition and additionally a small group of paintings from the ?Anima Sola? series from1993-4 that have never been shown in Sydney.

In 2007 Godwin presented recent work at the James Makin Gallery Melbourne in the exhibition of ?International and Australian Works on Paper? a show that included the prestigious company of Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, Sean Scully and others. Additionally Godwin exhibited installation video and works on paper in ?Lux in Tenebris Lucet? at RMIT School of Art Gallery and ?Australian Works on Paper 11? at John Buckley Fine Art and ?Bodies and Minds? at Charles Nodrum Gallery in Melbourne.

Godwin Bradbeer has taught in many art schools in Australia. He is currently Co ordinator of Drawing within the RMIT University School of Art in Melbourne, Australia


March 2007