Natasha Johns-Messenger (born 1970) is an Australian conceptual artist and filmmaker, who has lived and worked in New York and Melbourne. Johns-Messenger is best known for her large-scale site-determined installations that examine spatial perception and light. Her work is a complex process of imitation, illusion and trickery, often activated by architectural interventions and optical physics. Johns-Messenger's practice includes photography, digital painting and sculpture.

Background

Johns-Messenger is the great-granddaughter of Australian rugby legend Dally Messenger and sister of singer

Julia Messenger Julia Messenger is an Australian singer-songwriter and producer best known for her work in the electronica, chill-out and jazz genres, being dubbed the “Queen Of Chill” as well as her jazz performances being described as something she “su ...

. Johns-Messenger's mother, Catherine Marie Johns, is a poet and novelist in Australia and her works have been published in literary journals including '' Meanjin'' and '' Island Magazine''. Her father,

Dally Messenger III Dally Messenger III (born 1938) is a civil celebrant, author, publisher, commentator, and a founder and chronicler of the civil celebrant movement which originated in Australia. He is the grandson of the rugby union and rugby league footballer ...

, is an author, noted for his books ''Ceremonies and Celebrations'', ''Murphy's Law And The Pursuit Of Happiness: A History Of The Civil Celebrant Movement'' and for his general contribution to the Australian civil celebrant movement.

Career

Johns-Messenger employs the principles of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

, film and the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

to produce a new experiential sculptural framework. She creates representations or abstractions from the original architecture, using material devices such as, periscopic mirrors, live video projections and architectural mimicry to produce large-scale installations. Her interest in

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...

, mathematics,

seriality {{see also, Seriality (gender studies) A seriality is a social construct which differs from a mere group of individuals. Serialities take the form of labels which are either imposed onto persons or voluntarily adopted by them. A seriality can be "u ...

and geometry is also implemented within her practice. Johns-Messenger critically examines the role of the body in space. Her primary concern with altering ordinary "ways of seeing" began during early childhood, where she spent days sketching, conceptualising and photographing shapes from ordinary objects. Johns-Messenger commenced her art practice as a painter. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours in 1994, and in 2000 she completed a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). She has exhibited at major institutions, including the

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 Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, the

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art The Australian Centre For Contemporary Art (ACCA) is a contemporary art gallery in Melbourne, Australia. The gallery is located on Sturt Street in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, in the inner suburb of Southbank. Designed by Wood Marsh Architects ...

, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and the Contemporary Centre for Photography in Melbourne. In 2012 Johns-Messenger completed an MFA in Film at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, New York, marking a shift into narrative film, where she combines her interest with abstraction and the moving image into real time. ''Blackwood'', her final graduate film at Columbia, won numerous awards at the 2012 Columbia University Film Festival, including the Alumni Award for Best Film, National Board of Review Motion Pictures Award and the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Best Director Award. ''Blackwood'' went on to premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival and was featured in 40 film festivals and won numerous awards. Her first film after graduation, ''Off-Ramp'', won Best Student Film and Best Actress at the Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival.

Exhibitions

Johns-Messenger has been curated into major international group exhibitions alongside artists such as Dan Graham, James Turrell and Lawrence Weiner. In 2009/10 Johns-Messenger was commissioned by the New York Public Art Fund, for her work ''ThisSideIn'' and in 2010 created ''Recollection'' fo
No Longer Empty
New York at Governor’s Island and was a studio resident at the ISCP in New York (International Studio and Curatorial Program) under the Australia Council for the Arts, studio residency program. In 2007, she won the Den Haag Sculptuur Rabo Bank Prize presented to her by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and in 2006 Johns-Messenger won the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture with her then collaborative group OSW, Open Spatial Workshop (Bianca Hester, Scott Mitchell and Terri Bird). Johns-Messenger's exhibitions have taken place in Japan, Bogota, China, The Netherlands, Taiwan and USA. Her public works can be seen all over the world, with her most recent work ''Alterview'', which was commissioned by Percent For Art and the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, permanently located at Hunters Point, New York. Other exhibitions include ''Yellow'', 2011, at ACCA, The

, Melbourne; ''Through to You'', "Freedom-American Sculpture"

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

(Den Haag), The Netherlands; ''Of Water'', 2008, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA),

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

; ISCP Open Studio Exhibition, ISCP, New York and Trappenhuis (Stairwell) Installation, Den Haag Sculptuur,

Escher Museum Escher in Het Paleis (''Escher in The Palace'') is a museum in The Hague, Netherlands, featuring the works of the Dutch graphical artist M. C. Escher. It is housed in the Lange Voorhout Palace since November 2002. In 2015 it was revealed that ma ...

, Netherlands; NEW06 at ACCA; Primavera 2004,

(MCA), in

; and ''Drift'' at the

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) is a contemporary visual and performance arts venue located in a heritage-listed building in Perth, Western Australia. History 1896–1959: Schools The building at 53 James Street, Northbridge, which ...

(PICA) in

Perth, Australia Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

. The 2020 Adelaide//International exhibition at the Samstag Museum in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

centred around an installation called ''Somewhere Other'' by

John Wardle Architects John Wardle is a Melbourne-based architect. He graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with a degree in Architecture. Biography John Wardle established his architectural practice, John Wardle Architects (JWA), in Melbourne in ...

in collaboration with Johns-Messenger. It had also been Australia's entry in the 2018

Venice Architecture Biennale Venice Biennale of Architecture (in Italian Mostra di Architettura di Venezia) is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 202 ...

. Due to run from 28 February to 12 June, the exhibition was cut short by the closure of the Samstag in March 2020 owing to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Australia The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 Januar ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Johns-Messenger, Natasha 1970 births Living people Australian conceptual artists Women conceptual artists RMIT University alumni Australian filmmakers Australian installation artists Women installation artists Australian photographers 21st-century Australian sculptors Columbia University School of the Arts alumni 21st-century Australian women artists

Background

Career

Exhibitions

References

Further reading

External links