TextaQueen

TextaQueen’s practice articulates delicate interplays between vulnerability and empowerment, intimacy and exhibitionism, and subjective and collective expressions of feminist, queer, and cultural identities.

Texta was born and raised in Perth and both her parents are from Goa, India. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) at the University of Western Australia in 1995, and has exhibited nationally and internationally, with works held in important public collections including Art Gallery of Western Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria, National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Monash University Museum of Art, Artbank and University of Queensland.

Selected solo exhibitions include Coconut Legacy, Sullivan + Strumpf (2014), Unknown Artist, Sullivan + Strumpf, and Social Engagement, Sullivan + Strumpf (2013), Naked Landscapes of Gippsland and Beyond, Switchback Gallery, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2010); Felt-tips Forever, The Arm, Brooklyn, New York, USA and Casa Del Popolo, Montreal, Canada (2006), and Un-dressed-up, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, Western Australia (2004). Recent group exhibitions include Visions into Infinite Archives, SOMArts, San Francisco, USA, Fifty Shades of Blak, Blak Dot Gallery, Melbourne (2016); White lies: As we know it, Incinerator Atrium Gallery, Moonee Ponds, Melbourne (2016); Speed: The Fast and The Curious, MAMA Albury (2016); Both Sides of the Street, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne (2015); Cars = My Automolove, Caboolture Regional Art Gallery (2015); Discendance, African American Art & Culture Complex, National Queer Arts Festival, San Francisco, (2013); Unknown Artist (performance with Sister Spit), New Museum, New York (2013); Self-Conscious: Contemporary Portraiture, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2012) and Subtext – Art for Literacy, Carriageworks, Sydney (2011). TextaQueen has undertaken residencies at Bundanon Trust NSW, Police Point Shire Park, Victoria, The League Residency, Vytlacil, Upstate New York on Tappan land; an Asialink residency in Varanasi, India; and on Wurundjeri land at Laughing Waters, Eltham the Gippsland Centre for Art and Design, Monash University, Victoria, and at the Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland.

In February 2017, TextaQueen is presenting a solo exhibition of photography Eve of Incarnation at Blak Dot Gallery, and a nationally touring survey show, Between You and Me, will debut at Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, followed by a solo exhibition of works on paper, Gods Save the Queen at Sullivan + Strumpf opening in March.

TextaQueen is a NAVA Premium Plus member and represented by Sullivan + Strumpf.

In this video, Texta chats to NAVA about the impact that living and working overseas has had in further developing a language for processing a racialised identity in her practice.

Photo by Heidrun Löhr

Production: Dominic Kirkwood

Director of photography: Yanni Kronenberg