Biography

Grainger Gallery Presents
PROPS, MASKS & MAGIC
Andrew Antoniou 14 July 2022

The world of the imagination and it’s language, for me, is
boundless. It crosses from waking to dream, from memory
to myth and from our familiar world to the magical or
imaginal world.

These images are tapestries made up of the many strands
of my experiences both conscious and unconscious realised
in the form of theatrical tableaus. Their genesis maybe in a
song line or something remembered inspired by poems or
scenes from films or mythology. The stage settings are
homes to the characters that embody my interest in
mythology, symbolism and dreams. The players existence is
timeless but within the picture their actions are captured in
a freeze frame moment. Human landscapes within the
proscenium arch projecting absurdity alongside meaning.
My intent with my work is not simply to re-create a dream
but to use the “stuff of which dreams are made”, to create a
dream experience using the the language of the symbol & amp;
the metaphor to open the curtain on the inner drama that is
common to us all and, as with theatre, we need the
suspension of our disbelief to experience the drama
unfolding.

In my work, I seek to explore the relationship between dream, myth & imagination.
These themes have been informed by my interest in symbolism and the unconscious life over many years. My love of theatre has given me the format of the stage and its accompanying language of props, sets and costume on which to compose these characters that represent aspects of the psyche.
These aspects can take many forms.
From the heroic to the angelic, the magician to the trickster, the dreamer to the warrior.

Painter and printmaker Andrew Antoniou completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Winchester School of Art and a Master of Art at the Central School of Art, London in 1974. Antoniou has held 7 solo exhibitions with Australian Galleries since 2006 and has exhibited internationally in the United States at Davidson Galleries in Seattle from 1987 – 2001. He has held solo exhibitions at Wollongong, Muswellbrook, Goulburn, Tweed River, Shoalhaven, Orange and Maitland Regional Galleries, and became a member of the Royal Society of Etchers in London in 2001.

Andrew Antoniou has been a Finalist in various major prizes including The Dobell Drawing Prize, AGNSW; the Jacaranda Drawing Prize, Grafton Regional Gallery; The National Works On Paper Prize, Victoria; the Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, Sydney; the Hutchins Drawing Prize, Hobart; the Swan Hill Drawing Prize, Victoria and the Banyule Works On Paper Prize, Victoria. Antoniou was awarded the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery Prize in 1988, the Warringah Art Prize in 1994 and the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award in 1998. He won the Tyree Tycan Drawing Prize in 2005 and the Swan Hill Drawing Prize in 2014. He was Awarded an Australian Print Council Commission in 2004 and 2014 and was acquired by the Ketumba Drawing Collection in 2012.

Andrew Antoniou has taught at most universities and art schools in NSW over 30 years including National Art School, Sydney College of the Arts, COFA, Canberra School of Art, Newcastle University, Woollongong University, University of Western Sydney. His work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in the UK.