John Gillies is an Australian visual artist, filmmaker and musician, particularly known for his "multi-layered and complex" video works and installations. He has also curated a number of video art programs. Gillies studied visual art and music at the

University of Southern Queensland The University of Southern Queensland (branded as UniSQ and formerly branded as USQ) is a medium-sized, regional university based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, with three university campuses at Toowoomba, Springfield and Ipswich. It offe ...

, including film and video with David Perry. Later he studied at Sydney College of the Arts. He has produced many video art works since the 1980s including ''Hymn'' (1983), ''Techno/Dumb/Show'' (1991), ''Armada'' (1994–98), ''My Sister's Room'' (2000) and ''Divide'' (2006). and is particularly known for his collaborations with performers including The Sydney Front (''Techno/Dumb/Show'' and ''Test''), Clare Grant (''The Mary Stuart Tapes'') and Tess de Quincey (''The de Quincey Tapes'' and ''Shiver Remix''). Based partially on the writings of the early twentieth century Polish

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

writer and artist Witkacy and his argument in Australia with anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, Gillies created the film and art installation, ''Witkacy & Malinowski: a cinematic séance in 23 scenes''. Gillies has recorded and performed as a solo musician (often with video projection), and was drummer and percussionist with experimental musician

Jon Rose Jonathan Anthony Rose (born 19 February 1951) is an Australian violinist, cellist, composer, and multimedia artist. Rose's work is centered in the experimental music known as free improvisation, where he has created large environmental multimed ...

, keyboardist Jamie Fielding and

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

singer-songwriter

Kev Carmody Kevin Daniel Carmody (born 1946), better known by his stage name Kev Carmody, is an Aboriginal Australian singer-songwriter and musician, a Murri man from northern Queensland. He is best known for the song "From Little Things Big Things Grow", ...

. The subsequent Carmody releases ''Street Beat'' and the album ''Bloodlines'', which included the song

From Little Things Big Things Grow "From Little Things Big Things Grow" is a protest song recorded by Australian artists Paul Kelly & The Messengers on their 1991 album ''Comedy'', and by Kev Carmody (with Kelly) on his 1993 album ''Bloodlines''. It was released as a CD singl ...

, were nominated for

ARIA In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

awards in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

and

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

. He has had a long collaboration with guitarist Michael Sheridan, including playing in Sydney

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

jazz band Great White Noise, Slaughterhouse (aka Slawterhaus) and with singer

Radical Son David Leha, known professionally as Radical Son, is a Kamilaroi and Tongan singer. He was part of the GetUp Mob, which released a cover version of "From Little Things Big Things Grow" in May 2008 – it reached No. 4 on the ARIA Singles C ...

Collections

* Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney * , Hiroshima * Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne *

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), located on George Street in Sydney's The Rocks neighbourhood, is solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting, and collecting contemporary art, from across Australia and around the world. It is ...

, Sydney *

Queensland Art Gallery The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. It complements the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) building, situated only away. The Queensland Art Galler ...

, Brisbane *

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

, Canberra

References

External links

*
Scanlines: Media Art in Australia since the 1960sJohn Gillies: Videowork,22 April–27 May 2006, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillies, John 1960 births Living people 21st-century Australian artists Australian male musicians University of Southern Queensland alumni Musicians from Queensland Australian video artists People from Beaudesert, Queensland