Stuart Ringholt

Prato project 2017

Theatre Stills, a series of collages using Italian print media from the sixties and seventies sourced in Prato from the many second-hand stores and markets. The series includes images from art, architecture, fishing and alpine landscape publications re-purposed to create ‘sketch images’ of a fictional theatre.

Interiors and Abstracts also utilise Italian print media but from a later period, the eighties. In Interiors Stuart merges images from Siena archeological digs, Lombard alpine regions and Tuscan interiors to create surrealist outcomes. In Abstracts he provides alternative narratives by completely removing the original object photographed and replacing it with an ‘after-image’.

Background

Born in Perth, Australia, in 1971, Stuart lives and works in Melbourne. He was awarded a PhD in Philosophy by Monash University in 2016, and he has a Bachelor of Arts (Design) from Curtin University, Perth.

Stuart’s work takes many forms, from performance, video and sculpture to collaborative workshops, and is characterised by a resolute sense of art as a social enterprise. Personal and social themes such as fear and embarrassment are often presented through absurd situations or amateur self-help environments, including nude gallery tours, anger workshops and participatory performance works.

Stuart has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally, since 2003.

Some of Stuart's works are held in the Monash University Collection.