GREG CREEK is an Australian born artist who has presented group and individual exhibitions in Australia, the UK, Europe and Asia, and has been the recipient of numerous residencies, commissions and awards.
His drawing and painting practice represents a political perspective on personal and public histories, using naturalism and metaphor, reality and fiction.
Extended drawing projects explore the materiality, processes and installation space of drawing using narrative, allegory and graphic satire to address the volatile relationship between the individual, the political body and social context.
His large paintings manifest ideas in various ways using tonalist forms, painterly stains and scumbles, saturated, compositional color, and screen-printed body fragments in abstracted, tenebrous architectures. Light and darkness is used expressively and symbolically, creating an atmosphere of anxiety in which figures and landscapes unsettle one another. He weaves re-imagined spectral figures, ruptured domestic and industrial architectures, and ideas from speculative fiction into allegories of contemporary experience.
Works are often composites: collaged so that the surface reads both as a unified narrative structure and as a repaired corpus. In them Creek layers abstract, textual and figurative affects that intensify the spaces of representation. Fragments emerge from interior and exterior spaces often sourced in actual experience. His works combine the perturbed and the beautiful, the imaginary and the sincere, the uncanny and the everyday.. They bear witness to the entanglements of contemporary cultures and the complexities of transformation, identity and the nature of representation itself.
Creek completed a PhD at RMIT University (2014) where he is a senior lecturer in art and Studio Leader in Drawing. Since 1991, he has presented numerous group and individual exhibitions in Australia and internationally including Dog Whistlers, Kunstraumarcade, Vienna, Austria (2016), Greg Creek: The Desktop Drawings, Shepparton Art Museum (2015), Freehand: Recent Australian Drawing, Heide Museum of Modern Art (2010-11), The Enlightenments, Edinburgh Festival (2009), and The Allegorical Imperative: Greg Creek’s Slow Homecoming, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2003 ). Creek has been the recipient of numerous residencies and commissions and was awarded the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 1996 and the Castlemaine Art Museum Len Fox Painting Prize in 2022.
Awards, Commmissions, Residencies
2022 The Lester / Fini Foundation Artist Prize
2016 AIR Krems International Residency, Austria.
2015 Drawing Wall Commission. Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton, Australia.
2014 VA/CB Australia Council New Work Grant.
2013 Ping Pong Collaboration commission. Cultural Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia 2010
2013 Residency. Nillumbik Shire, Laughing Waters, Victoria, Australia.
2009 Commission. Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, UK.
2008 Residency, Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, UK.
2006 Australian Post-Graduate Award Research Scholarship.
2006 City of Melbourne Art Project Grant.
2005 The Melbourne Savage Club Painting Prize
2004 National Gallery of Victoria, Spirit of Football Community Award
2003 Melbourne Commission. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
2002 Residency. Open Bench Program, Craft Victoria, Melbourne.
2001 Residency. VA/CB Australia Council London Studio.
2001 Arts Victoria Arts Development Grant.
2001 Research Grant. Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Melbourne.
1998 Residency. Sydney University Power Studio, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.
1997 City of Port Phillip Mural Commission. St.Kilda Town Hall, Melbourne.
1996 VA/CB Australia Council Project Grant.
1996 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.
1992 Residency. Oncology Unit at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne.
1991 A. M. E. Bale Travelling Scholarship Special Award.
1990 Margaret Stewart Endowment Commission. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1989 Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria, Dora Wilson Award for Painting.
Individual Exhibitions
2024 Paintings. Sarah Scout Gallery, Melbourne.
2020 Paintings. Sarah Scout Gallery, Melbourne.
2017 12th-20th Amendments. Sarah Scout Gallery, Melbourne.
2016 6th Party Machine: Dog Whistlers. Kunstraumarcade, Vienna, Austria.
2016 Drawings for Krems. Kunstmeile AIR Studio, Krems, Austria.
2015 Greg Creek: The Desktop Drawings. Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton.
2014 Dog Whistlers & 34 Drawings for Love, Death and Politics. Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne.
2013 5th Party Machine - Augenblick. RMIT School of Art Gallery, Melbourne.
2013 Ping Pong (with Jorge Julian Aristizabal), RMIT University Design Hub, Melbourne.
2013 ChatterShapes. RMIT University, Melbourne.
2009 Amendments. Sarah Scout, Melbourne.
2008 4th Party Machine - the Internationale. VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
2007 3rd Party Machine - Higgins. Conical, Melbourne. Manifesto Drawings: Representatives. Ocular Lab, Melbourne.
2006 3rd Person Collaboration: Carolyn Eskdale & Greg Creek. RMIT Project Space & RMIT School of Art Gallery, Melbourne.
2003 The Allegorical Imperative: Greg Creek’s Slow Homecoming. ACCA, Melbourne.
2000 Paris Desktop Drawing. Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University, N.S.W.
2000 Paris Desktop Drawing. Canberra Contemporary Art Space, ACT.
1999 Paris Desktop Drawing. Temple Studio, Melbourne & Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria.
1997 Noosa Regional Gallery, Queensland. Desktop Drawing. Pendulum, Sydney.
1996 slow homecoming. Temple Studio, Melbourne.
1994 Burial in Bendigo. Temple Studio, Melbourne.
1993 ART + TEXT... Temple Studio, Melbourne.
1991 Paintings/Parable of the Blind. Judith Pugh Gallery, Melbourne.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Working Title: Studio Practice in the RMIT Art Collection. RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
2023 Trinity Buoy Wharf Working Drawing Award, London, UK.
Experimental Print Prize. Castlemaine Art Museum. Australia.
Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize. Bayside Gallery, Melbourne.
2022 Water: Works on paper. SG Gallery - Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy.
The Lester. Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Paul Guest Drawing Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery.
Geelong Contemporary 2022. Geelong Art Gallery, Australia.
Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize. Bayside Gallery, Melbourne.
Len Fox Painting Award. Castlemaine Art Museum.
2021 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery
Geelong Contemporary 2021. Geelong Art Gallery, Australia.
2020 The Kilgour Prize, Newcastle Art Gallery, Australia
2019 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery
2018 Splash Watercolour Award Exhibition. McClelland Contemporary, Australia.
Paul Guest Drawing Prize. Bendigo Gallery, Australia.
2017 9x5 Now. Margaret Lawrence Gallery, VCA, Melbourne.
2016 Spring 1883. Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne.
Best in Show: Dogs In Australian Art. Orange Regional Gallery, NSW, Australia.
Art, Landscape and Memory in Eltham. Barn Gallery, Montsalvat, Eltham
2015 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, 2015, State Library of NSW, Sydney.
Anzac Art Prize, St Andrews War Memorial Hospital, Brisbane.
Contemporary Australian Drawing #5, SACI, Florence,Italy.
2013 Reading the Space; Contemporary Australian Drawing #3, New York Studio School, New York, USA
2012 National Works on Paper. Mornington Penninsula Regional Gallery, Australia.
Basil Sellers Art Prize. Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.
Drawing Out: Contemporary Australian Drawing 2. University of Arts, London.
2010 freehand: recent Australian drawing. Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
Inside Out, DMU Cube Galley, Leicester, UK. & Object Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2009 The Enlightenments. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.
2008 Rembrandt’s: 9 Installations. Rembrandt’s Function Centre Site, Knox City, Melbourne.
Drawn Encounters. Gallery at Wimbledon, Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK.
Robert Jacks drawing Prize. Bendigo Art Gallery, Australia.
Attrium. RMIT University Project Space, Melbourne & St.Paul Street, Auckland, NZ.
World’s End. Carlton Hotel & Studios, Melbourne
2006 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2006. State Library of NSW, Sydney.
2005 Take a Good Look. Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, NSW.
2004 The Kedumba Drawing Award Exhibition, Kedumba Gallery, Leura NSW.
2003 Arthur Guy Painting Prize. Bendigo Art Gallery, Vic.
2002 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2002, State Library of NSW, Sydney.
Heat, Noosa Regional Gallery, QLD.
Geelong Contemporary Art Prize Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong.
2001 The Kedumba Drawing Award Exhibition, Kedumba Gallery, Leura NSW.
Federation Festival Australia Projects. RMIT Gallery, Melbourne.
Parliament Desktop Drawings. Victorian State Parliament House, Melbourne.
A Studio in Paris- Australian Artists at the Cité 1967-2000. S.H.Ervin Gallery,Sydney.
2000 Sulman Prize Exhibition. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Art and Land: Contemporary Australian Visions. Chiang Mai Contemporary Art Gallery, Thailand; Silpakorn University Art Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand; Vientiane, Laos; Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Phillipines; Earle Lu Gallery La Salle, Singapore.
1999 National Works on Paper. Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria.
1998 All This and Heaven Too. Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Dobell Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
1997 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong.
Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Australian Art. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1996 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize1996. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (touring).
How Say You? Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (touring).
1995 12th Biennial of Drawing. Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria.
A Gathering of Shades; Recent Images of Death in Melbourne (curator). Temple Studio, Melbourne.
1994 Lineage. Linden Gallery, Melbourne.
Generic People. The Basement Project, Melbourne.
1990 witness. 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne (touring).
1989 re:Creation/Re-creation. Monash University Gallery. Melbourne.
Public Collections
Art Bank, Bendigo Art Gallery; City of Port Phillip Collection; Castlemaine Art Museum, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery; National Gallery of Victoria, RMIT University Collection; Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne; Shepparton Art Museum; Trinity College Collection, Melbourne; Tweed Valley Regional Art Gallery; University of Melbourne Collection.
Selected Bibliography
2022 Annie Silberstein, ‘In Conversation: Greg Creek’, Lester 22, Mess Books, September 2022.
2016 Gamper, McDean, Wearne, ‘Manifesto Drawing - Greg Creek’, TMPLProjects, October 2016.
Jane Woollard, ‘Laughing Waters Road: Art, Landscape & Memory in Eltham’, Nillumbik Shire Council, Greensborough, Australia.
2015 Camille Nock, ’Greg Creek’, Artist Profile, Issue 32, nextmedia, St Leonards, Sydney, 52-55.
Editorial, ‘Social Work, Greg Creek: The Desktop Drawings’, Trouble Mag, 6.08.2017. Available at http://www.troublemag.com/greg-creek-the-desktop-drawings/
Toby Fehily, ‘Greg Creek Studio’, Art Guide Australia, July/August 2015, 50-55
Kirsten Paisley, ‘Greg Creek The Desktop Drawings’, Shepparton Art Museum Newspaper, June 2015.
Gemma Pass, ‘Greg Creek: From architecture to art’, desktop Magazine, 16.06.2015. Available at https://desktopmag.com.au/news/greg-creek-from-architecture-to-art/#.WYb0EOn7xtV
Sarah Sweet, ‘Greg Creek The Desktop Drawings’, Art Almanac, June 2015, 42-43. Available at http://www.art-almanac.com.au/greg-creek-the-desktop-drawings/
2014 Harriet Kate Morgan, ‘Greg Creek’, Art Guide Australia, 7 July 2014.
2010 M MacNeill, ‘Small is beautiful: InsideOut’, The Art Life, 16.07.2010. Available athttp://theartlife.com.au/?p=3149
2009 Jonathan Jones, ‘The age of reason for Edinburgh art’, The Guardian, 11 August 2009.
Anna MacDonald, ChatterShapes, The Enlightenments,Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh.
2007 D. Heagney (Editor) ‘Making Space: Making Space: Artist Run Initiatives In Victoria’, VIA-N, Melbourne.
2003 Margaret Plant, ‘Between Seeing and Weeping: Greg Creek’s Utopian Allegories’, The Allegorical Imperative: Greg Creek’s Slow Homecoming, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
Juliana Engberg, ‘History, Heresey, Hearsay: Greg Creek’s Melbourne Desktop Drawing, The Allegorical Imperative: Greg Creek’s Slow Homecoming, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
2001 Harriet Edquist, ‘Violence of Appearances Suite’, (catalogue essay), The Australia Projects, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne.
2000 Tom Nicholson, ‘Afterword’, Paris Desktop Drawing, CCAS and Power Publications, Canberra.
1998 Michael Bullock, ‘Desktop Drawings’, (catalogue essay), All this and Heaven Too, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
1994 Marie Sierra-Hughes, ‘Timeless Burial’, Herald-Sun, 2 November
Robert Nelson, Speaking a language more familiar, The Age, 9 November 1994.
1994. Kevin Murray, ‘A splendid time is guaranteed for all’, Lineage (catalogue), Linden Gallery, Melbourne.
1993 Rod McLeish, ART+ TEXT... Greg Creek, Temple Studio Publication #2, September 1993.
1992 Cynthia Holland, Greg Creek Portraits, Royal Womens Hospital, Melbourne, July 1992
Mary-Lou Jelbart, Sightings, (interview). ABC National Radio 3AR, March 1992.
1991 Kevin Murray, Science of Melbourne, Otis Rush, 6 July 1991.
1990 Kevin Murray, witness, (catalogue), 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, July 1990.
1989 Robert Rooney, Original copies a recreational re-creation, The Australian, 4 November 1989.
Merryn Gates, re:Creation/Re-creation, (catalogue), Monash University, Melbourne, October 1989.