Stephen Haley

BACK TO THE FUTURE

The Australian artist Stephen Haley bridges the discoveries of the Renaissance with the twenty-first century. The concept of the vanishing point and thus central perspective was the beginning of the development of the modern, technology-dominated world of imagery. In early Renaissance vedute, the buildings of spatially well-ordered cities were viewed with a sober gaze. Haley constructs a congenial image of the strictly ordered structures of the worlds in which we live and work today. With the help of 3D technology he is able to create seductive illusions, which he simultaneously interrupts with repetitions and insertions of real urban panoramas. It is the visual art of interstice that allows the modern world to appear in well organized basic themes. Haley’s works, which he calls “virtual photographs,” are scientifically based, visual commentary on current and future developments.

Haley has a doctoral degree from the University of Melbourne, where he teaches art history. In his academic work he has dealt extensively with the concepts of society and reflection. His ideas and designs today assume a network that encompasses the internet and other networks and dependencies of modern man: “As the mesh envelops us all, it has the capacity to restrict but also to connect us all within its net. It is capable of oppression as well as giddying beauty – it depends on the operator.”

True space is, in Haley’s words, increasingly designed according to models in virtual space. “The mirror has become the metasign for our age. We occupy a historical point where the real has vanished into simulation.” The scholar’s theses find their congenial correlation in his almost unsettlingly beautiful images of a determined future.

Horst Klöver

Stephan Haley was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1961. He studied art, history, and philosophy at the Victorian College of Arts and at the University of Melbourne, where he also received his doctoral degree for the work Mirror as Metasign: Contemporary Culture and the Mirror Land.

Solo Exhibitions

2008	Projected Worlds, Academy Gallery, School of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Tasmania, Australia
	Place into Space, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2007	Selected Video Works: Stephen Haley, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2006	Mesh, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Projector, 18th Street Arts Centre, Los Angeles, USA
2005	After Reflection, VCA Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Metamorph, Michael Carr Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2004	Reverb, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2003	Super Natural, Michael Carr Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2002	New Estate & Nature Strips, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2000	Echolalia, Level 11 Gallery, Ashton, Raggat and MacDougall, Melbourne, Australia
1998	We Don’t Live Here, La Trobe Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
1997	Echo, La Trobe Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
1995	West Space, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
1994	Residua, Linden Gallery, St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia

Group Exhibitions

2008	Fletcher Jones Art Prize, Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong, Australia
	Macarthur Cook Painting Prize, FortyFiveDownstairs Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	When I think about Art, George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne, Australia
2007	Penelope Davis, Stephen Haley, Joyce Khol, Artcore Brewery Annex, Los Angeles, USA
	The Director’s Lounge 2007 Contemporary Art and Media, Berlin, Germany
	U-Turn, Glendale Art College Gallery, Glendale, Los Angeles, USA
	The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, VIC
	Maroondah City Council Collection Highlights, Maroondah Art Gallery, VIC
	Macarthur Cook Painting Prize, 45 Downstairs, Melbourne, Australia
	Living Elvis, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2006	Random Access, curated by Robert Lindsay, McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, Victoria
	Resistance is Futile, VCA Gallery, Victoria Melbourne Reign, Michael Carr Gallery, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
	Reunion, Westspace Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2005	The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, Victoria
	World Year of Physics Art Prize, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
	Savage Club Invitation Prize, Savage Club, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
	Industrial Strength, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia
2004	The Spirit of Football, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
	Sigraph, Super Computing Conference, Pittsburgh, USA
	ANZ Visual Art Fellowship, ANZ Bank Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Young Collectors, Michael Carr Art Gallery, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
	Spring, Michael Carr Art Gallery, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
	FloraNova, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria Boogie, Jive and Bop, Curator Malcom Bywaters, Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
2003	The Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, VIC
	Glacier, Curators Darren Wardle and Suzanne Davies, Benalla Art Gallery, Benalla, Victoria
	Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, Newcastle, New South Wales
	Queensland Art Museum, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland
	Boogie, Jive and Bop, Curator Malcom Bywaters, Launceston Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania
	Hobart School of Art, Hobart, Tasmania
	Red Spot Special, Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Hallelujah, Michael Carr Gallery, Sydney
2002	Suburban Echo (Stephen Haley, Howard Arkley, Alex Danko, Darren Wardle; Curator Robert Lindsay), McClellan Regional Gallery, Mornington
	Home Front, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra, Australia
	Third Nature, Michael Carr Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia
	John Leslie Art Prize, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria
	Recent Acquisitions 1999 – 2002, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Horsham, Victoria
	Clear Seeing, UMPA Art Prize Exhibition, Span Galleries, Melbourne, Australia
	Innovation Exhibition, Innovation: Arts-Media-Design National Symposium Part 2, The VCA Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2001	Glacier, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Here There  Elsewhere: Suburban Themes, Maroondah Art Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Office of Utopic Procedures, Westspace Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	A4 Art, Westspace Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2000	A Brush With Death, La Trobe Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
1999	The Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship 1999, VCA Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	A Four Art, Westspace, Melbourne, Australia
1998	Deacons Graham and James/ Arts 21 Award, Museum of Art, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
	Stable, La Trobe Street Gallery, Melbourne Diversity, Switchback Gallery, Gippsland Centre of Art and Design, Churchill
	A-4 Art, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
	Talk Artists Run Space, Melbourne, Australia
	Pinoak Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
1997	Deacons Graham and James/ Arts 21 Award, Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
	Whim: Humour in Art, Linden Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Autumn Show, La Trobe St. Gallery, Melbourne. Christ I’m Pissed Off, Stop 22 Gallery, Fringe Arts, Melbourne, Australia
	Work, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
	A-4 Art, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
1996	See Spot Run, Next Wave Festival, Temple Studios, Melbourne, Australia
	Shifting Ground: Moonee Valley Invitation Art Prize, City of Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, Australia
	100 Years of Footy, The Artist’s Garden, Melbourne, Australia
	A-4 Art, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
1995	Destinazione - Arte: Platform Artists Exchange Exhibition, Villa Spinola, Genova, Italy
	Rupert Bunny Foundation Selected Artists Exhibition, City of Port Phillip, Melbourne, Australia
	Save Albert Park Nine by Five Invitation Exhibition, Robert Lindsay Gallery, Melbourne
	ArtWorkz 7, 101 Collins St Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	A-4 Art, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
1994	Power and Site, Next Wave Festival, Gallery Gecko, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
	Out West, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
	Endangered Species, Linden Gallery, St.Kilda, Melbourne, Australia
	The Room Outside, Argyle St. Studios Gallery, St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia
	A-4 Art, Westspace Gallery, Footscray, Melbourne, Australia
1993	Slide, Gertrude St Gallery, 200 Gertrude St, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
	Small Works, Fitzroy St. Gallery, St.Kilda, Melbourne, Australia
	Young Melbourne Artists, Leonard Joel’s’ Auctions, Melbourne, Australia
1992	ArtWorkz Four, 101 Collins St  Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
	Mass Hang, Deutscher Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia
	Daventry Art Prize,  Monash Studios, Collingwood, Melbourne, Australia
1991	All Stock Must Go, Swanston St. Gallery, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
	First National Student Art and Design Show, Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne, Australia
	RMIT Graduate Show, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
1990	Verisimilitudes, Swanston St Gallery, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia