Andrew Nicholls

Known for his high-baroque and high-camp sensibility, Andrew Nicholls employs drawing, ceramics, photography, and expansive site-based curatorial projects to explore the various ways in which power and desire have been expressed through the history of Western aesthetics.

Born and raised in Perth and of English ancestry, Andrew frequently references the artistic legacies of British Imperialism and Colonialism, alluding to the darker histories of exploitation, oppression and fetishisation that often underlie antiquated aesthetics that we may be inclined to consider benign or quaint. He is particularly concerned with periods of cultural transition during which Western civilisation’s stoic aspirations were undone by base desires, fears or compulsions, and with 18th century Britain’s fascination with, and paranoia of, other cultures and ‘othered’ identities.

Andrew has exhibited across Australia, Southeast Asia, Italy and the United Kingdom, and undertaken residencies in Australia, China, England, Italy, Singapore and the United States. He has been the recipient of two Creative Development Fellowships from the Western Australian Government, and undertaken commissions for organisations and individuals in Australia and the United States, including his ceiling mural for the City of Perth Library in 2016, and an Artbank commission undertaken from 2016-2018.

Andrew has curated projects for organisations including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, FORM, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Object Galleries Sydney, and written for the majority of Australia’s major visual arts journals. His works are represented in many collections including Artbank, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the City of Perth, Janet Holmes à Court and the Kedumba Collection of Australian drawings.