Craig Walsh
Wynscreen contributing artist.
Born 1966, Orange, Australia
Lives and works in Tweed Heads, Australia
Within Reach
2017, duration 3 x 10 mins, looped
Commissioned by Transport for New South Wales
Screening times:
6am-3pm on even-numbered days throughout May 2020
3pm-12am on odd-numbered days throughout May 2020
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Artist Statement
Within Reach is site-responsive work that presents a formal fusion of human forms and native flora, rising, falling and clustering within a vast landscape.
While the movement, repetition and form of these figures were designed to accentuate the transient functionality of the Wynscreen site, their presence establishes both a stark contrast and surreal relationship to natural and constructed spaces.
The provocative gestures of the hybrid ‘living’ forms invite the viewer to consider our fundamental human need to ‘connect’, not only to others but also to the environments we occupy. The figures at times do connect and build communities or landscapes, highlighting the random actions that often enable such relationships.
The ambiguity of the work aims to draw the viewer into subtly shifting and contemplative frames of reference.
Production Credits
- Artist, Director, Producer: Craig Walsh
- 3D Animation: Steven Thomasson
Artist Biography
Craig Walsh is primarily interested in site-responsive projects that explore alternative contexts for contemporary art. He utilises projection, photography, installation and sculpture within existing environments and landscapes. Throughout his 25-year career Craig has developed and implemented numerous curatorial projects, gallery exhibitions, public artworks and hybrid collaborations.
Craig’s artworks have featured in many national and international exhibitions and institutions, including the Setouchi Triennale, Japan; the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; Jakarta Biennale XIII, Indonesia; Yokohama International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan; 01SJ Biennial San Jose, California; Biennale of Australian Art, Adelaide; Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, and National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne.
He has presented major works for festival environments including Nuit Blanche (Paris and Toronto), Womad Festival (Australia, Singapore, England) Fuji Rock, Japan, Tollwood Festival, Germany, and the Sydney Festival. Since 2001 He has been the creative producer for the Splendour in the Grass Arts Program for the past 16 years.
His recent projects focus on developing work in regional locations, and collaborating with the community groups who live there, including Craig Walsh: Digital Odyssey, a partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art (Australia) (MCA) commenced in 2010 as a national 18 month, multi-venue tour and artist residency in rural and remote locations throughout Australia. A collaboration with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation in the Pilbara, Western Australia, resulted in Embedded (2013), a solo exhibition at the MCA. In 2014, the MCA and IMA published a 200-page monograph on his practice. He was a finalist in the 2015 International Award for Public Art.
Craig is the lead artist in Small Town Transformations, a Victorian Government initiative managed by Regional Arts Victoria, and will deliver a major project in Birregurra, VIC, in 2018.