What
View stockroom & exhibitionsWhat’s work consistently interrogates the limits of materials and the role of art in society, while at the same time creating absorbing and breathtaking works. What’s practice has encompassed painting, performance, sculpture and installation and often critiques the role of art and the artist in contemporary society. His work draws on his own life, popular culture, art, music, politics and religion – often provoking controversy as well as humour. Indeed, as Sebastian Smee
remarked in 2007, What is “fearless”.
A key aspect to What’s work is interrogating the limits of materials and his diverse use of (sometimes unconventional) materials was demonstrated in What: Large Art 1720 – 2009, What’s survey exhibition held at the National Art School in 2009. At the show, Mike Parr declared that What’s Instrument for Measuring the Universe 2002-2004 “one of the masterpieces of Australian art”.
The son of a truck driver, What was born in Queensland and grew up in Western Sydney. He completed a Masters of Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Sydney in 2001 after graduating from the National Art School, Sydney. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at Campbelltown Art Centre, Wollongong City Gallery and Gallery9, Sydney, and Block Projects, Melbourne; and has participated in group exhibitions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Wollongong City Gallery, Firstdraft Gallery, and MOP Projects. He has been a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and won the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award in 2002. What has participated in artist residencies in Basel, Switzerland; Wollongong City Gallery, NSW, and at the Arts NSW Gunnery Studio Residency.