Artists CV
KEVIN MORTENSEN
Born 1939, Melbourne, Australia
1957-60 Diploma of Education, Melbourne State College
1961-71 Teacher, Secondary Art & Craft
1962-65 Diploma of Art (Sculpture), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
1971-75 Lecturer in Sculpture, Burwood State College
1975-83 Lecturer in Sculpture and Drawing, RMIT
2008 Hon, visiting research fellow, Monash University, Caulfield, VIC
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 ‘Fans in a stream’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2018 ‘The Alchemist’, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, VIC
‘Sculpture, paintings, drawings and prints’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2016 ‘Catharsis’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
‘SERIOUS PLAY: The Art of Kevin Mortensen’, book launch accompanied by an exhibition of selected works, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
‘Transmitter’, exhibition and book launch, Gecko Studio Gallery, Fishcreek, VIC
2014 ‘Sculpture & Drawing’, Australian Galleries, Roylston Street, Sydney
2013 ‘Sculpture & Drawings’, Australian Galleries, Derby Street, Melbourne
2010 ‘Serious play’, Australian Galleries, Glenmore Road, Sydney
2009 ‘Back to the sea from which I came’, Australian Galleries, Smith Street, Melbourne
2007 ‘World View’, Australian Galleries Painting & Sculpture, Melbourne
2006 ‘Bronze Sculpture, Jewellery, Drawings & Etchings’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2003 ‘Like a Dog with a Bone’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2001 ‘What the Raven Saw (Thought and Memory)’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
1998 ‘Man and the Bird – Man and the Sea’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
1997 ‘Inside the Bower: Kevin Mortensen’, Latrobe Regional Gallery, VIC
Canberra School of Art Gallery, Australian National University, ACT
Benalla Art Gallery, VIC
1996 Australian Galleries, Sydney
1994 Australian Galleries, Melbourne
1992 Sale Regional Art Gallery, VIC
Powell Street Gallery, Melbourne
1991 Powell Street Graphics, Melbourne
1986 Ray Hughes Gallery, Sydney
1981 Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
1979 Watters Gallery, Sydney
1975 ‘Shards from a cave-carters backyard’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1974 Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne
1971 Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne
1967 Argus Gallery, Melbourne
2019 ‘Australian Galleries: The Purves Family Business. The First Four Decades’, Book Launch and Group Exhibition, Australian Galleries, Melbourne ‘papermade’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2018 ‘Yering Station Sculpture Award and Exhibition, Yering Station, Yarra Glen, VIC
2017 ‘Yering Station Sculpture Award and Exhibition, Yering Station, Yarra Glen, VIC
‘Sculpture: medium and small scale – Mixed Sculptors’, Australian Galleries, Sydney
2014 ‘one of each’, Australian Galleries, Derby Street, Melbourne
2011 ‘large exhibition of small works’, Australian Galleries, Roylston Street, Sydney
‘large exhibition of small works’, Australian Galleries, Derby Street, Melbourne
2010 ‘Summer stock show’, Australian Galleries, Smith Street, Melbourne
‘Artists’ Prints made with Integrity I’, Australian Galleries, Smith Street, Melbourne
2009-10 ‘Summer Stock Show’, Australian Galleries, Derby Street, Melbourne
2008 ‘Off the point’, Celia Rosser Gallery, Fish Creek, VIC
‘Who let the dogs out’, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, NSW
2007 ‘Summer Stock Show’, Australian Galleries Works on Paper, Melbourne
‘Small Pleasures’, Australian Galleries Painting & Sculpture, Melbourne
2006 ‘Stock Show’, Australian Galleries Painting & Sculpture, Melbourne
ANL Maritime Art Prize, Melbourne
‘50th Anniversary Exhibition’, 5th June, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2005 ‘Notes from the Natural World’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2004 ‘Species’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
‘The Australian Print Workshop Archive 2’, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
2003-04 ‘A Modelled World’, McClelland Gallery & Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, VIC
2003 ‘This was the Future’, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
‘The Jomantis Years’, RMIT, Melbourne
‘The sea, the sea’, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Horsham, VIC (touring)
1995 ‘Illuminaries’, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
1994-95 ‘25 Years of Australian Performance Art’, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney; Australian tour
1993 ‘Dame Edna Regrets She is Unable to Attend’, Latrobe Valley Arts Centre, VIC
Barwon Wetlands Art Project, Geelong Art Gallery, VIC
1991 ‘Off the Wall in the Air: Art of the Seventies’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
1990-92 ‘Contemporary Gippsland Artists’, Latrobe Valley Arts Centre, VIC, touring exhibition
1989 ‘Prints and Australia, Pre-settlement to Present’, Australian National Gallery, Canberra
‘Three Days of Performance’, Monash University, Melbourne
Fourth Australian Sculpture Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1988 ‘Drawing in Australia 1970s-1980s’, Australian National Gallery, Canberra
1987 ‘Why People Go To Traffic Accidents’, Theatre Works, Melbourne
‘Gravity’s Angels’, Wangaratta Artspace, VIC
1985 ‘Works from the Monash Collection’, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
1984 Second Australian Sculpture Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1983 ‘Continuum’, Awajicho Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1982 ‘Eureka! Artists from Australia’, ICA, London
1981 ‘Australian Perspecta’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
First Australian Sculpture Triennial, Latrobe University, Melbourne
‘Anzart’, The Boiler House, Christchurch, New Zealand
‘Animals and Animism in Australian Art’, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
1980 Adelaide Festival of Art, Performance Week, Adelaide
Venice Biennale, Australian Pavilion, Italy
1978 ‘Act 1’ Performance Festival, Australian National University, Canberra
‘Lost and Found: Objects and Images’, Ewing and George Paton Gallery,
The University of Melbourne Union, Melbourne
1976 Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
‘Link Exhibition’, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
1975 ‘Artist’s Artists’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Mildura Sculpture Triennial, VIC
1973 Mildura Sculpture Triennial, VIC
1972 Group Exhibition, Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne
1970 Mildura Sculpture Triennial, VIC
1968 ‘24 Point Plug Show’, Argus Gallery, Melbourne
‘Alcorso-Sekers’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
PERFORMANCES
2008 ‘Flying the Ornithopter’, Celia Rosser Gallery, Fish Creek, VIC, with Greta Mortensen
2007 ‘Woman in the window’, Australian Galleries Painting & Sculpture, Melbourne
2003 ‘Like a Dog with a Bone’, Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2000 ‘Limnophilous Longirostral’, Noosa, Queensland, with Greta Mortensen
1998 ‘Display of the Bird King’, Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra
1993 ‘The Ibis and the Song’, 18 September, with Pat Freeman (singer), Kevin Alder (second birdman), Mark Althorpe (sound), Barwon Wetlands Project, Hospital Swamp, Lake Connewarre wetlands, Geelong Art Gallery
1989 ‘Self Portrait as the Seagull Salesman’, Three Days of Performance, Lecture Theatre, Visual Arts Department, Monash University, Melbourne
1987 ‘Why People go to Traffic Accidents’, performance/theatre, with Peter Sommerfeld, Theatre Works, Melbourne
1986 ‘Kinetic Sunrise’, The Performance Space, Sydney
1985 ‘Kinetic Sunrise’, Alexander Theatre, Monash University, Melbourne
1982 ‘60 Ways to Fool a Trout’, Eureka! Artists From Australia, ICA and Serpentine Gallery, London
1981 ‘Camp Atavism’, Preston Institute of Technology, First Australian Sculpture Triennial, Melbourne
‘We Point the Bone: Bone the Bomb’, in collaboration with Tony Coleing, Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane
1980 ‘Even the hairs on your forearm grow in the same direction as their feathers’, Venice Biennale, Italy
1979-80 ‘The Rowing’, in collaboration with Steve Turpie, Bruce Lamrock, Peter Hopcraft, Murdoch Court, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
‘The Rowing’, Carclew House, Adelaide Festival of Art, Adelaide
1979 ‘The Rocking’, Watters Gallery, Sydney
1978 ‘The Rocking’, with Kevin Alder, ACT 1 Performance Festival, Australian National University, Canberra
1975 ‘The Delicatessen’, environment at Mildura, VIC
Sculpture Triennial, Actor: Eddie Rosser
1973 ‘St. Paul’s performance’, with John Davis, Spring Festival, St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne
1972 ‘The Opening Leg Show Party Bizarre’, Happening with Mike Brown and Russell Dreever, Pinacotheca, Melbourne
1971 ‘The Seagull Salesman; his stock & visitors, or Figures of Identification’, Pinacotheca, Melbourne
COLLECTIONS
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of South Australia
Art Gallery of Western Australia
Burwood State College
City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Deakin Univeristy Art Collection
Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale
Grafton Regional Gallery
Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell
Parliament House Art Collection
Private collections
Tasmanian Musuem & Art Gallery
University of Queensland
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davies, Suzanne; “Venice Biennale ‘80”, Art Network, No. 2, Spring, 1981
Davies, Suzanne; La Biennale: Visual Arts 80 – General Catalogue, Visual Arts Board, Australia Council and Biennale di Venezia, 1980
Eureka! Artists from Australia, exhibition catalogue, ICA Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1982
Gates, Merryn; ‘Time and Tide; Daniel Thomas, ‘Birdman from Venus Bay’, Inside the Bower, exhibition catalogue, Canberra School of Art Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, 1997
Green, Charles; “Pinacotheca: A private art history”, Art and Australia, Vol 34:4, 1997
Green, Charles; Peripheral Vision: Contemporary Australian Art 1970-1994, Craftsman House, 1995
Hansen, David; ‘Kevin Mortensen’, Contemporary Gippsland Artists, exhibition catalogue, Latrobe Valley Arts Centre, Victoria, 1990
Haysom, Rob; Serious Play: The Art of Kevin Mortensen, Thames & Hudson, 2015
Marsh, Anne; “Australian Performance Art – 1970s”, Art and Australia, Autumn, 1989, p 412-418
Marsh, Anne; Body and Self: Performance art in Australia 1969-92, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993
Mind and Matter, exhibition catalogue, Sale Regional Art Gallery, Victoria, 1992
Scarlett, Ken; Australian Sculptors, Nelson, Melbourne, 1980
Silvermann, Lynne; “Recent International Forms in Art”, Arts Melbourne & Art Almanac, Vol. 14, December 1976
Sturgeon, Graeme; The Development of Australian Sculpture 1788-1975, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978
Sturgeon, Graeme; “Kevin Mortensen, Icons and Images”, Art and Australia, Vol. 17:1, September 1979, p 66-71
Sturgeon, Graeme; Sculpture at Mildura 1961-1982, by Mildura City Council, Victoria
Taylor, Paul ed.; “Anything Goes: Art in Australia 1970-1980”, Art & Text, Melbourne, 1984
Thomas, Daniel; “Birdman from Venus Bay”, Art and Australia, Vol. 33:3, Autumn 1996, p 370-375
Waterlow, Nick; 25 Years of Australian Performance Art, exhibition catalogue, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, 1995
Williams, Donald; In Our Image, The Story of Australian Art, McGraw Hill, 1987
Zimmer, Jenny ed.; Animals and Animism in Australian Art, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne 1981