Melbourne Airport - Emerging Talent program - Profiles

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Paul Wrigley

Melbourne Airport Innovators Award
Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, 2007

Q: Why and how did you become an artist?

PW: I've known since I was very young (3 or 4) that I would become an artist. The rest has been events conspiring to make it happen and an awful lot of hard work.

Q: Which artists have most influenced your work?

PW: Tough question - there's a lot of artists, both famous and not-so-famous, that have influenced my work. I've always been into American abstraction - the grand colour-field painting of people like Morris Lewis, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. Post-minimalists like Richard Serra and Sol Lewitt are very important to my work.

Picabia, Picabia, Picabia. Raymond Pettibon. 20th Century German painting has also figured large - Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Katherina Grosse, and Martin Kippenberger, to name but a few. Australians Rover Thomas, Peter Booth, Gloria Petyarre, Dale Frank, and Howard Arkley are all influences. Too many to list...

Q: What inspires you to paint and how do you keep motivated when things get tough in the studio?

PW: Everything is inspiration. Trips to galleries and lots of reading keep me going when the going's tough.

Q: What are the best and worst parts of being a full-time working artist?

PW: Best - I get to follow my own interests. Worst - The competitiveness and isolation make it hard to maintain friendships in the industry.

Q: What interests to you have outside of painting?

PW: Reading, comedy, movies, playing with my dog.

Q: Where do you keep your Melbourne Airport Innovators Award?

PW: On the mantelpiece, of course. Where else?

Q: What are you most looking forward to seeing in Venice?

PW: The art and architecture. Venice is very special place.

Q: You’re originally a Brisbane boy. What attracted you to Melbourne?

PW: Where do I begin? The climate, the people, the galleries, the atmosphere... If I was going to live anywhere in Australia it would be here.

Q: What has winning the Innovators Award done for you?

PW: It’s been great; it was a complete shock and took a while to sink in but has given me a fantastic opportunity. Going to Venice will be an education.

Paul Wrigley is the recipient of the inaugural Melbourne Airport Innovators Award.

Paul’s impressed the judging panel at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts with his exhibition ‘The End of the World/Untitled Wall Drawing’ which was described by Robert Nelson art critic from The Age as “Yielding an amazing sensation as if you’re standing close to the void.”

Based in Melbourne, Paul is a graduate of Queensland College of Art. In 2007 Paul’s work will be exhibited as part of a travelling group exhibition starting in Devonport Regional Gallery in Tasmania. His year will end with a solo exhibition at the Gallery Barry Keldoulis (GBK), Sydney in November.

Paul will represent Linden and the Victorian Visual Arts at the prestigious 2007 Venice Biennale Vernissage.

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