Anthony White born Sydney Australia 1976,graduated from National Art School, Sydney in 2005 BFA
White uses landscape and architectural references to work across discliplines of drawing, painting, collage and sculpture. His works are often characterised by an awareness of surface and a preoccupation with the engagement of physicality and the found object. Within this practice there is a concern between how the role of the gesture relates to art objects. The Pentimento series for example explores the intersection between two juxtaposing working methods. The direct working method.of the Italian concept of Pentimenti and the French techniques of indirect paper-based working methods – decollage and dechirage – which translate as ‘taking off’ and ‘tearing.’ The methods of decollage and dechirage were utilised by the early Affichistes in Paris. The Affichistes movement during the 1950’s were Raymond Hains and Jacques Villegle named for their work with collages of torn-up poster fragments. An exhibit of their works in 1957 termed their works Affiches Lacérées or ‘Torn Posters.’
The term Pentimento draws it’s name from the Italian Pentimenti. This phrase, which is used to describe a direct method of layering, concealement, or changes to a work of art, which allows multitudinous readings, as one descends through different layers of the painterly surface.
White’s investigation of dissent was initially instigated by recent paper collages created from salvaged Paris metro subway advertisements. Their original purpose was as a form of mass media. They existed as a collective form of communication in a public space. Often they become vandalised and half torn down, tagged with gestural lines and people’s marks, these ‘affiches’ now become a more personal form of communication. The Pentimenti group of works are investigating ideas about the origin of the gestural line, and its original role as a form of dissent – essentially a form of social communication. These personal voices of dissent, reflect the broader voice of the public in regard to social problems. By dwelling on the pictorial forms inspired by the constant state of flux of these subterranean advertisements White finds fertile ground to draw upon for his contemporary forms of drawing and painting.
Anthony White has exhibited widely over the past decade. Recent solo exhibitions have included AsThe Sleeper Wakes and Pentimento both at Metro Gallery Melbourne 2015 and 2016 respectively. During 2013 the Cat Street Gallery Hong Kong presented Anthony White Informal Relations and two solo shows with Sydney gallerist Iain Dawson: Paris Paintings (2010), and Scratching The Surface (2011). White has also been regularly curated into group exhibitions focussing on Contemporary Painting in Sydney, London, Hong Kong, Paris and Brisbane
White has been awarded a number of international commissions and residencies, which have reportedly been influential in developing his body of work, surveyed in White’s solo exhibition at Le Pave D’Orsay, Paris (2014)
White has been awarded the Marten Bequest for Painting 2007,The Elioth Gruner Prize for Landscape Painting Art Gallery of NSW 2005 and the FONAS Paris Studio at La Cite Internationale Des Arts 2009,a scholarship to the Leipzig International Art Programme in Leipzig Germany.
Anthony White is represented by The Cat St Gallery, Hong Kong ,Metro Gallery Melbourne and Nanda Hobbs Contemporary Sydney. Anthony White lives and works in Paris.