June 13 – July 11, 2015
Steve Turner is pleased to present Solid State, a solo exhibition by Melbourne-based Michael Staniak, featuring new painting and sculpture created by combining traditional art-making techniques with new digital processes. The paintings fuse the artist’s hand-drawn gestural marks that are cast in plaster with Internet-sourced, digitally created backgrounds of stone. The sculptures were made using the traditional technique of bronze casting along with contemporary 3-D scanning and machine routing processes. In mixing materials and methods, Staniak explores the different ways in which digital information is changing the physicality of painting and sculpture while addressing the question of permanence in the storage of digital files.
Michael Staniak (born 1982, Melbourne) earned a BFA and an MFA from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne as well as a BA from Middle Tennessee State University. He has had solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2015); Annarumma Gallery, Naples (2015); and Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2014 & 2015). His work has been included in group shows at the Moving Museum’s Istanbul project (2014) and Kunsthalle Vienna (2014, 2015). The Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis will publish a monograph later this year. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at Steve Turner.
Born 1982, Melbourne
Lives and works in Melbourne
Education
2011
MFA, Victorian College of the Arts University of Melbourne
2009
BFA, Victorian College of the Arts University of Melbourne
2003
BA, Mass Communication (Digital Media), Middle Tennessee State University
Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions
2015
Solid State, Steve Turner, Los Angeles
_IMG, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis
Permanent Display, Annarumma Gallery, Naples
2014
Art Rio (with Rafaël Rozendaal & Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles)
Data Loss, NKN Gallery, Melbourne
Slow Pictures, Artereal Gallery, Sydney
Internet Blueprints, Art Brussels (with Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles), Brussels
Image DNA, Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles
2013
STANDARD OUTPUT, Blockprojects, Melbourne
INSTAPAINT, Paradise Hills, Melbourne
2012
Square of Heroes, Artereal Gallery, Sydney
2011
History Suspended, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
Liquid Crystal Baroque, Metro Gallery, Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2015
The Future of Memory, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Space Program, Steve Turner, Los Angeles
2014
UNTITLED. (with Steve Turner Contemporary), Miami Beach
Moving Museum, Istanbul
ARTBO (with Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles) Bogotá
Blue Times, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Go With the Flow, The Hole, New York
Side Project, Academy of Design Australia, Melbourne
Bien Ou Bien?, Moncheri, Brussels
The Salon is a Living Room, Fanny, Berta, Vienna
Zona Maco (with Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles), Mexico City
2013
Untitled (with Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles), Miami
Merge Visible, Horton Gallery, New York
Sydney Contemporary 13 Art Fair, with Artereal Gallery, Sydney
#Pseudoreal, Charles Bank Gallery, New York
Charles Bank Gallery Summer Hang, New York
Paint 13, Artereal Gallery, Sydney
Everything At Once, Paradise Hills, Melbourne
2012
Polarspace.org, Online Exhibition, MELBOURNE, NEW YORK, GLOBAL
Primal Mutation, Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin
Not Fair Art Fair, Melbourne
VCA MFA Graduation Exhibition, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
Awards and Grants
2013
Australia Council Artstart Grant
2010
Australian Post-Graduate Award, Australia
2009
Stirling Group Award, Melbourne
2008
Acacia Award, Melbourne
Bibliography
2015
Tsui, Denise “New Currents: Material World,” Art Asia Pacific, Issue 92, March / April
2014
“SFAQ Pick: Untitled Miami Beach,” SFAQ.us, December 1
Pangburn, DJ. “We Went To The UK’s First Major Digital Art Auction,” The Creators Project (VICE), July 7
Forrest, Nicholas. “Australian Artist Michael Staniak Tops Phillips’ Paddles ON! Auction,” BLOUIN ARTINFO, July 7
Nguyen, Yasmin. “10 Questions: Michael Staniak.” Vault Magazine, Issue 6, April
2013
Forrest, Nicholas. “Australia’s Paradise Hills at ‘The Wrong’ Digital Art Biennale,” Art F City, November 19
Staniak, Michael. Standard Output, Block Projects, Melbourne, August 24
Gordon, Michelle and Parker Ito. Instapaint, Paradise Hills, Melbourne, May