Julian Meagher Australia, b. 1978
-
-
"I see painting as a physical act of hope with poetic intention. I’m drawn to moments of transition, those brief passages of light and time that hold the possibility of renewal. Most of my work falls into a neo-romantic genre, where unconditional love and hope are represented mostly through imagined skyscapes or dreamscapes and optical phenomena. We look to the heavens for signs to guide us during times of hope and despair. Every sky is a rainbow, and every painting a rainbow in that sky."
-
Biography
Photo: Zan WimberleyLives and works in SYDNEY, nsw, Australia
Julian Meagher (b. 1978, Australia) creates atmospheric paintings that hover on the threshold between landscape and abstraction. Belonging to a contemporary kind of Neo-Romanticism, elements of the natural world are continually folded into one another, creating paintings that move between the intimate and the expansive. His cotton-candy skies dissolve into softer fields of colour, caught between dawn and twilight, often occupying an ambiguous space between dreamscape and reality. Light becomes a vehicle for examining cycles of change and renewal. At the very centre, Meagher meditates on the love for his family, nature, mortality and hope.
Meagher completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of New South Wales in 2003, and still works one day a week as a surgical assistant. Medicine remains an important part of his discipline. That space of radical care is carried into the studio and present in his practice.
-
Awards & Accolades
Meagher is a five-time Archibald Prize finalist (2024, 2021, 2018, 2015 and 2014), a finalist in the Wynne Prize (2015) and a three-times Salon des Refusés finalist (2010, 2012 and 2018). His other major portraiture accolades include finalist selections in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (2012) the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award (2016 and 2017), and the Black Swan Prize for Portraiture (2010). He has also been a finalist in the Glover Prize (2019), Paddington Art Prize (2018), Mosman Art Prize (2013), The Gold Award at Rockhampton Art Gallery (2016), and Metro Art Prize, Melbourne, on multiple occasions between 2010 and 2012. Earlier recognition includes the Royal Bank of Scotland Emerging Artist Award finalist selection (2009), and an Australia Council New Work Grant (2012).
Meagher's work is held in numerous public and institutional collections, including the National Portrait Gallery and Australian War Memorial in Canberra; Bega Valley Regional Gallery; Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery; Saint Paul's College and Saint John's College at the University of Sydney; Australian Catholic University; and Artbank Australia. His recognition has established a sustained presence within the contemporary Australian art landscape, with his work represented in both public and private collections nationally and internationally. -
Selected Works
-
-
-
Exhibitions
-
