LIVES AND WORKS IN NEWCASTLE, NSW, AUSTRALIA

Born and raised in Newcastle, Drinkwater studied at the National Art School in Sydney (2001) before embarking on a prolific career marked by curiosity, experimentation, and a deep engagement with materiality and gesture.

Since his first solo exhibition in 2004, Drinkwater has presented more than thirty solo shows across Australia and abroad. In 2019, his work was the subject of a major survey exhibition, ‘The Sea Calls Me by Name’, at the Newcastle Art Gallery — a celebration of his enduring relationship with the coastal landscapes and communities that continue to inform his art.

Drinkwater’s practice extends beyond the studio, embracing collaboration across disciplines. In 2016, he was commissioned by Monash University’s Engineering Faculty to create a fifteen-metre sculptural relief, now permanently installed at the university’s Clayton Campus. The following year, he partnered with Australian fashion house ALPHA60 to develop a capsule collection that translated his painterly language into textile form.

In 2022, Drinkwater’s work was included in ‘Singing In Unison – Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy’, a landmark exhibition curated by Phong H. Bui and Cal McKeever for ‘The Brooklyn Rail’. Exhibited alongside artists such as Sean Scully, Julian Schnabel, Lauren Bon, Ron Gorchov, and Dorothea Rockburne, this inclusion affirmed his position within a broader international dialogue. That same year, he collaborated with choreographers Skip Willcox and Belle Beasely and composer Joseph Franklin on ‘Storm Approaching Wangi – and Other Desires’, a contemporary ballet commissioned by the Multi Arts Pavilion, MIMA Lake Macquarie, for which Drinkwater designed sets and costumes and performed in the final scene.

In 2023, his mid-career was marked by two major survey exhibitions: ‘Passage’ at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA) in Darwin, and ‘At Mid Career’ at the Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, curated by Terence Maloon.

Drinkwater’s work has been exhibited in group shows throughout Australia and internationally, including in Berlin, Leipzig, New York, and London. He has received numerous accolades, including the Marten Bequest Scholarship (2011), the Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship (2014), and the John Olsen National Art School Life Drawing Prize (2002), and has been a finalist multiple times in major national prizes such as the Wynne Prize, Sulman Prize, and Dobell Drawing Prize.

James has undertaken international residencies in Leipzig, Titjikala, Kenya, Paris, Tahiti and Ubud; experiences that have infused his work with a rich sense of movement and place. His works are held in a number of significant public and private collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, HOTA Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Artbank, Macquarie Bank, Monash University, and the Schnabel Collection, New York, among others. Most recently, his work ‘Sunday in Albi’ was acquired by The Blanca and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza collection for the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.