Tony Lloyd (artist)
Australian artist (born 1970)
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Early life and education
Lloyd was born in 1970 in Melbourne.[1]
He acquired a master's degree in fine arts at RMIT University in 2000.[2]
Art practice
Lloyd's paintings are influenced by cinema,[3] in particular film noir and science fiction,[4] and the Romantic conception of the sublime.[5] Lloyd's largely monochromatic paintings are realist in style.
His work depicts a wide range of subject matter from mountain landscapes[6] to film noir vistas of highways at night.[7] History and science fiction are recurring themes.[4] In the December 2009 edition of Australian Art Collector, critic Ashley Crawford wrote, "Lloyd’s work clearly encapsulates a strange crossover between popular and high culture – there are times when his work finds the meeting point between Von Guerard and Von Daniken."[8]
Curator Simon Gregg stated, "Often the works will speak of the future without implicitly describing anything that is futuristic. While at the same time the suggest a distant past, tinged with the faint melancholic wisp of nostalgia. Which heralds one of Lloyd's great contradictions and enduring points of interest: his works are insistently of the here and now – placing us squarely in the present moment of experience- but speak of time immemorial; of all time".[9]
Awards
Lloyd is the winner of the 2012 John Leslie Art Prize, a prestigious award for landscape painting for his painting, Expanded Sphere.[10][11]
He has been a finalist for other awards, such as the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, the Arthur Guy Prize at the Bendigo Art Gallery[2] and the 2024 Hadley's Art Prize for landscape.[12]
Exhibitions
Lloyd's art has been showcased internationally in places such as Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Melbourne and London.[2] Exhibitions include:
- Depth of Field at Shepparton Art Gallery and the Monash University Museum of Art (2003)[1]
- Oneindige landschappen at Slot Zeist in The Netherlands (2004)[13]
- Heat: Art and Climate Change at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2008)[14] and Gippsland Art Gallery (2009)[citation needed]
- Lost Highways (2009), at Gippsland Art Gallery; a survey of the artist's work from 1998 to 2008[15]
- High Plains Drift (2023), at Benalla Art Gallery; a survey of the artist's work from 2001 to 2023[16]
Collections
Lloyd's work is in the public collections of the State Library of Victoria[17] and Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale.[18]