Mathew Jones

Bio

Mathew Jones (b. 1961) is an Australian-born contemporary artist who also took British citizenship during a 20-year sojourn in the UK. Jones completed a BA at the Victorian College of the Arts, a MA at London Metropolitan University, and a PhD at Monash University. Since the late 1980s his work has dealt with the double-edged complexities of gay identity and queer theory. He has held over 20 solo exhibitions in Australia, New York and Canada and been included in over 45 group exhibitions throughout all Australian states and in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, São Paulo, Caracas, Copenhagen, New York and London. A survey of his photographic work from 1989 to 1994 was held at Monash Art Gallery in 2016. He was artist-in-residence at PS1 Museum, New York 1995/6, and the Acme Studio in London in 2001. He received an Australia Council Fellowship in 2003. His earliest work such as Silence = Death (200 Gertrude St, Melbourne; Artspace, Sydney; and Institute of Modern Art Brisbane throughout 1991) embraced notions of silence and refusal as political strategies in ways that pre-empt the interests of many younger queer artists today. I Feel Like Chicken Tonight (Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Canberra Contemporary Artspace, Canberra, and Artspace, Sydney throughout 1995) highlighted the expulsion of NAMBLA from ILGA during the mainstreaming of gay politics, whilst Poof! (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 1993 and 1995) exploded the idea of a stable gay identity and The New York Daily News … pined for a time before Stonewall. Other projects of note include A Place I’ve Never Seen (Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo; Optica, Montreal; and Ace Art, Winnipeg), and, Mathew Jones & Simon Starling (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2002), and several public art projects. If his work of the 1990s critiqued gay identity politics he is more likely now to bemoan the hegemony of queer politics and recent works look backwards at creative ways we can forge gay links with artists of the past.

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