Michael Vale

Artist Profile

Biography

Michael Vale is a Melbourne based artist whose work sits at the nexus of Romantic traditions, dark fiction and the delightfully absurd. From this vantage point, Vale’s work shrugs off singular readings of ‘haunting’ or ‘playful’. Instead, his work offers viewers a more complex narrative. Fantasy and reality jostle upon the canvas, creating an intoxicating mise en scene that is delightfully unsettling. His landscapes provide traditional backdrop to his irreverent players, calling upon the visual language of the Romantic sublime. Mountains soar moodily and majestically – nature at its most fearsome and powerful, casting in stark relief the folly of humankind’s confidence and efforts of dominion. Vale’s characters play to this folly and the dark nature of its reveal. Brightly clad and often cartoon-like, Vale sets his eerie figures upon the landscape – skeletons, ghosts and hooded figures. It’s this mix of seriousness and frivolity that typifies the artist’s work, in his own words he says “I find it hard to be too serious. I’m serious about painting, but not necessarily about the content – when it comes to the content I like to have a bit of fun.

Melbourne-based Australian artist Michael Vale is highly celebrated for his idiosyncratic romantic-absurdist style. In 2021 he was a recipient of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, and has been a finalist in the Archibald prize three times – in 2019, 2013 and 2012. In 2018 he received the Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize and in 2017 won the Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize. He has been shortlisted in the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize (2019). In 2006 he was awarded Best Film on Art at the prestigious Asolo Artfilm Festival in northern Italy for his video work, The Long Walk. He was the inaugural director of Linden Contemporary Art Centre in St Kilda, and also co-renovated the Ghost Train at Luna Park.

BIOGRAPHY

Exhibitions

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 gromboolian plane, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2022 AbsurdiO, Despard Gallery, Hobart
Morning Came and Went, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney
After the Deluge, James Makin Gallery at Melbourne Art Fair
2020 The Guests, Despard Gallery, Hobart
A Clown in the Moon, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Time Traveller, Despard Gallery, Hobart
2016 The Transit of Mercury, Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne
2013 The Conquest of Space , Five Walls Projects, Melbourne
2012 Lamplike, Trocadero Artspace, Melbourne
2011 Untitled (green) Screenspace, Melbourne
2009 R.I.P , Linden New Art, Melbourne
2006 Le Chien Qui Fume (a smokey life) , Monash University
Chiengrila , Chapman & Bailey
2005 Le Chien Qui Fume , Westspace, Melbourne
A Smokey Life, TBC art.inc., Melbourne

SELECTED 2 PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2015 The Umbelliferous Portraits (with Nicholas Ives), Rubicon Artspace, Melbourne
2011 The Innocents (with Donna McRae), Westspace, Melbourne

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024 Contemporary Australian Portraiture, Glen Eira City Council Gallery, Melbourne – forthcoming
Sydney Contemporary, group show presentation by James Makin Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Melbourne Art Fair, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2023 Celebrating 20 Years, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2022 Martin Browne Contemporary at Sydney Contemporary
Don’t say I never warned you, when your train gets lost, cur. Michael Vale, Stockroom, Kyneton and Kingston Arts Centre
Group show, James Makin Gallery
Group show, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney
2021 Finalist Exhibition, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (online)
Don’t say I never warned you, when your train gets lost, Stockroom, Kyneton
Chapter Three, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne
2020 Summer New, James Makin Gallery
Group Show, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney
Salon des Refusés, S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2019 Feast , Stockroom, Kyneton, Victoria
The Aurther Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo
Shit that I like, Nicholas Projects
Pop-up exhibition curated by Peter Hill, Venice & Grau Projekt
The Archibald Prize , Art Gallery of New South Wales
Parallel Universe , Stephen McLaughlin, Mekbourne
The Museum of Aphorisms , C3, Melbourne
The Nillumbik Art Prize , Montsalvat
2018 Beyond Reason , Queensland University of Technology
Gothic Beauty , Bendigo Art Gallery
Art Athina , Athens, Greece
Dark (Other) Times , Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart
Albany Art Prize , Albany, Western Australia
The Alice Prize , Alice Springs, N.T.
Hutchins Art Prize , Hobart
2017 Romancing the Skull , Art Gallery of Ballarat
Bayside Art Prize , Bayside Gallery, Melbourne
Footscray Art Prize, Footscray Arts Centre, Melbourne
2016 Slippery Stories , Strange Neighbour, Melbourne/ Durden & Ray, Los Angeles
Museum of Doubt , Despard Gallery, Hobart
Animalia , Despard Gallery, Hobart
Authenticity?, Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne
Dada Here & Now , Fort Mason, San Francisco Arts Festival
Bayside Art Prize , Bayside Gallery, Melbourne
2015 Horror Show , Strange Neighbour, Melbourne/ Gippsland Regional Gallery
Oily Rag , Fort Delta, Melbourne
Decade , Trocadero Artspace, Melbourne
The Umbelliferous Portraits (with Nicholas Ives), Rubicon ARI, Melbourne
Likeness , Town Hall Gallery, Melbourne
2014 Make Believe it’s Nothing , MARS Gallery
A Window That isn’t There , Strange Neighbour
As If , King’s ARI, Melbourne
Whistling in the Dark, Trocadero Artspace
Salon des Refusés , S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2013 The Archibald Prize , Art Gallery of New South Wales
2012 The Archibald Prize , Art Gallery of New South Wales
2011 Beautiful Volcanoes , Monash University Faculty Gallery
The Innocents (with Donna McRae), Westspace, Melbourne
2010 Museums in the Incident, Monash University Faculty Gallery
Underdog , Five Walls Projects, Melbourne
Belleura Works on Paper , Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
Fletcher Jones Art Prize , Geelong Regional Art Gallery
Belleura Works on Paper , Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
Short Play , Thousand £ Bend, Melbourne
2009 Loop 09 , Barcelona Video Festival, Barcelona
Nardini’s Garage , Bassano al Grappa, Italy

VIDEO WORKS

2016 The Transit of Mercury , Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne
2015 Lamp People , Durden & Ray, Los Angeles
2014 Augustine , Dada Here & Now, San Francisco
2013 Lamplike, Trocadero Artspace, Melbourne
2011 Untitled (green) , Screenspace, Melbourne
2007 The Servants of the Moon, Linden, St Kilda FF)
2006 The Long Walk , Asolo FF, Westspace, ACP Sydney, Monash University + multiple screenings
2005 The Cheat , TCB, Monash University
2003 Le Chien Qui Fume Asolo FF, St Kilda FF, WOW FF, Monash University

CURATORIAL PROJECTS

2016 Slippery Stories, co-curated with Tom Dunn – Durden & Ray, Los Angeles / Strange Neighbour, Melbourne
2014 A window that isn’t there , Strange Neighbour, Melbourne Whistling in the Dark , Trocadero Artspace, Melbourne
2012 Threshold Projects , co-curated with Siri Hayes, Screenspace, Melbourne
2011 Beautiful Volcanoes , Monash University

Awards

AWARDS/RESIDENCIES/GRANTS

2021 Winner, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
2018 Hutchins Art Prize, Hobart
2017 Bayside Art Prize
2006 ‘Best Film on Art’, Asolo Artfilm Festival, Italy

ARTWORKS

Michael Vale Flame Tree 2024 oil on linen 122 x 92 cm $14,350.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale I left my home in Mount Gerome, And headed for the great unknown 2024 oil on linen 122 x 92 cm $14,350.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Daydreamer and Billygoat 2024 oil on linen 137.5 x 112 cm $16,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Skulduggerers 2024 oil on linen 153 x 138 cm $23,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Picnic 2024 oil on linen 137 x 112 cm $16,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Pink Suit 2023 oil on linen 137.5 x 107 cm $15,300.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Cheating at Cards 2023 oil on linen 167 x 137 cm $25,000.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Graveyard Shuffle 2023 oil on linen 152 x 122 cm $21,100.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Cactus Growers 2023 oil on linen 152 x 122 cm $21,100.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Dazzling Strangers 2023 oil on linen 152 x 122 cm $21,100.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale Politician 2023 oil on linen 71 x 61 cm $6,700.00 ENQUIRE →
Michael Vale The Secret Meeting 2023 oil on linen 122 x 102 cm $14,350.00 ENQUIRE →