Talk: Damien Shen and Ashley Crawford

Speakers

• Damien Shen (AU)

  Born 1976, Adelaide, Australia
  Lives and works Adelaide, Australia

  Damien Shen is a South Australian man of Ngarrindjeri and Chinese bloodlines. His artistic practice is embedded in histories, revisiting the people, places and stories that shape the world he occupies. From time consumer, labour intensive drawings to bleeding water colours and velvety smooth oil paintings, Shen is constantly constructing and deconstructing the world around him through his imagery to better understand his identity of those that help to shape the world he lives. While constantly exploring different mediums, his content remains relevant to contemporary Australian issues around race, history and politics. Constantly pushing his practice while engaging with and responding to the people, places and stories that effect his ideas around identity, Shen has started his career with a vigorous and contagious energy.

• Ashley Crawford (AU)

  Dr. Ashley Crawford is a freelance cultural critic, author, essayist, arts journalist and curator based in Melbourne. He is the author of a number of books on Australian art, including Spray, The Work of Howard Arkley (co-author, Craftsman House, 1997) and, most recently, Dark Gnosis: Religious Imaging in Millennialist America (Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2018). He has been a regular contributor for numerous notable publications, and is the former editor of Tension, World Art, 21•C and Photofile magazines.