Bundanon

Michael Needham’s practice fuses drawing, object-making and sculptural installation that often responds to specific sites and cultural contexts.

His work explores myth, belief and residual melancholia in the contemporary psyche, repeatedly focusing on uncanny sensibilities around mimicry and memorialisation. Needham’s works channel remnants of corporeality no longer present, mimicking familiar historical forms in unfamiliar contexts as a form of reflective critique.

Needham has shown nationally and internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions. He has a BFA (Hons) from Monash University (2002), and PhD (Fine Art) from the Australian Catholic University (2010).

In Residence at Bundanon

Within this residency, Needham hopes to identify new working processes that test out additional trajectories for his professional practice, potentially expanding and reorienting creative responses to natural and found materials. The focus at Bundanon will be to record tactile elements and textures from the natural environment, with the aim of preserving recognisable features, yet allowing more flexibility and evolution in the development of presentable outcomes. This will entail innovation with sustainable/natural materials for both the recording of textural impressions as well as casting processes.