Bianca Beetson
Australian artist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dr. Bianca Beetson is an Australian contemporary artist.
Dr Bianca Beetson | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Education | Queensland University of Technology, Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts - Honors) |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture, drawing, public art, photography, installation, textiles, new media, ceramics and public art |
| Movement | Contemporary Australian Aboriginal art |
| Awards | Inaugural ACHAA award for Excellence by an Aboriginal Curator at 2018 IMAGinE Awards. |
| Website | biancabeetson |
Life and career
Bianca Beetson was born in Roma, Western Queensland. She is an Indigenous Australian of the Kabi Kabi nation of the Sunshine Coast in South East Queensland. She studied and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in visual arts at the Queensland University of Technology from 1993 to 1995. She completed her Honours in 1998 and was awarded a Doctorate of visual arts at Griffith University in 2018.[1]
In 1997 her work was selected for the prestigious exhibition for emerging artists, Primavera at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.[2] She is an established Indigenous artist who lives and works in Brisbane. Her work includes media such as painting, photography, installation, new media, textiles and public art. In her paintings and sculpture she often uses shades of pink. Her work also reflects on her relationship to skin and she interprets body paint designs and scarification marks in a contemporary manner.[3]
In 2013, she was commissioned by the Brisbane Botanic Gardens to install her sculpture, the Feast of the Bon-yi, in bronze and corten steel there on Mount Coot-tha. The cluster of large nuts and spirit figures visualises the gathering of the tribes. The nut itself symbolises a sacred object, it provides nourishment, rebirth and growth and is the reason why people travelled from so far and wide.[4] In 2019 she had a solo show about the self-portrait called Being Human curated by Hamish Sawyer at Caloundra Regional Gallery, Sunshine Coast, Queensland. [5]
Beetson was a member of the art collective the Campfire group which exhibited "All Stock Must Go" at the Second Asia Pacific Triennial in 1996-1997 at Queensland Art Gallery. [6] She is also a founding member of the Aboriginal Art Collective proppaNOW; she was a member from 2004-2011.[7] She taught at Queensland College of Art and Design, and was head of CAIA (Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art) the degree program for First Nations students, before taking up a post at Griffith University as head of the Indigenous Research Unit. She is currently Director, First Nations at Queensland Museum.
Beetson designed the 2025 Maroons' mens Indigenous jersey. [8] She is the niece of Artie Beetson, a famous rugby league player who played for Australia, New South Wales and Queensland.
