Shaun Gladwell

Shaun Gladwell

Alumni

Shaun Gladwell completed a Master of Fine Arts.

Without a doubt, UNSW Art & Design graduate Shaun Gladwell is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artists. He began to make his name in the 1990s by exploring the strangely complementary creative forms of painting and skateboarding. More than 20 years later, Gladwell’s international gallery fame seems only to climb.

Shaun was honored in 2016 with a prestigious Alumni Award. He is a member of the BAD FAITH collective of visual artists and filmmakers, and has been a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Design and Art at Cartin University. After being prominently featured in the 2016 Sydney Festival, his breathtaking work, Skateboaders vs Minimalism, moved onto Europe to occupy SOLO presentation status at Art Brussels. 

Shaun Gladwell represented Australia at the 53rd Venice Biennale. His works are held in the permanent collections of National Gallery of Australia, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Sydney), Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), and Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT). He has been exhibited worldwide and was the 2009-10 Official Australian War Artist, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial, a position also held by Arthur Streeton, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, Nora Heysen, Sidney Nolan, and Wendy Sharpe. 

In 2017, Gladwell's breathtaking virtual reality work Orbital Vanitas was featured at the Sundance New Frontier Exhibition, and a prominent feature of the high profile Romancing The Skull exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.