Image: Brad Darkson. Image courtesy fine print magazine.
Guildhouse is thrilled to announce Brad Darkson as the recipient of Voice of the Artist, a neon-based public art commission that will soon adorn the north side of the Guildhouse building. Brad has worked in consultation with Aunty Lynette Crocker, Ngangki Burka Senior Kaurna woman to create the artwork.
Supported by the City of Adelaide, the commission is an opportunity to inspire, comfort, subvert, and respond to the times we are living in, signalling solidarity to the artistic community and inspiration to pedestrians and passers-by.
Currently working across various media including carving, sound, sculpture, multimedia installation and painting, Brad is a South Australian visual artist whose practice regularly focuses on site-specific works. Conceptually, Darkson’s work is often informed by strong ties to both his Narungga First Nations and Anglo-Australian heritage. His current research interest includes seaweed, surveillance, ritualised human behaviour and the pitfalls of neo-capitalism, as well as reconnecting with culture.
Launching during SALA, we will share more details about the artwork and public launch soon!
Image: Aunty Lynette Crocker, Ngangki Burka Senior Kaurna woman. Photograph Colleen Raven.
Brad Darkson is a South Australian visual artist currently working across various media including carving, sound, sculpture, multimedia installation, and painting. Darkson’s practice is regularly focused on site specific works, and connections between contemporary and traditional cultural practice, language and lore. His current research interests include hostile architecture, bureaucracy, seaweed, and the neo-capitalist hellhole we’re all forced to exist within. Conceptually Darkson’s work is often informed by his First Nations and Anglo Australian heritage. Brad’s mob on his Dad’s side is the Chester family, with lineages to Narungga and many other Nations in South Australia from Ngarrindjeri to Far West Coast. On his Mum’s side he’s from the Colley and Ball convict and settler migrant families, both arriving in 1839 aboard the Duchess of Northumberland.
In 2015 he completed a BFA at the University of South Australia and in 2017 he completed an MFAD at the University of Tasmania. Selected exhibitions include Make Yourself Comfortable I (solo exhibition) Post Office Projects 2022, Neoteric (group exhibition) 2022, Experimenta Life Forms (international triennial of media art) touring 2021 – 2024; Adelaide//International (group exhibition) Samstag Museum 2020; International Symposium on Electronic Art (South Korea) 2019; VIETNAM – ONE IN, ALL IN (Country Arts SA national exhibition) touring 2019 – 2021; The Return (group exhibition) Dark Mofo 2018; LOSS. GAIN. REVERB. DELAY. (solo exhibition) Vitalstatistix 2017.
Darkson currently sits on the board of The Australian Network for Art and Technology and the Guildhouse Artist Advisory Group.
