Kit Wise

Position title:

Senior lecturer
Acting Head of Fine Arts
Course Coordinator of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Degree
Studio Coordinator of Sculpture

Qualifications:

BFA Oxon
MFA RCA

Statement

After graduating from Oxford University and the Royal College of Art with an MFA in Sculpture, Kit Wise received the Wingate Rome Scholarship in Fine Art in 1999, to study at the British School at Rome. In 2001 he received a Boise Travel Scholarship, administered by the Slade School of Fine Art, for subsequent research in New York, Egypt & Australia.

Moving to Australia in 2002, he received an Australia Council Presentation & Promotion Grant in 2004 as curator of the international touring exhibition ‘Academici: the first five years of the Australia Council Rome Award’ as well as an Australia Council Skills Development grant to study in Tokyo for three months in early 2006. In 2006 he was also included in the major survey show ‘Responding to Rome: British Artists in Rome, 1995 - 2005’ at the Estorick Collection, London. In 2007 he received his third Australia Council research grant, for original research in the fine arts.

Wise continues to undertake research as an artist, art writer and curator, and has published over 30 articles, reviews and catalogue essays since 2003 including texts for Australian and international art journals such as Artlink, unMagazine and Frieze. He is Deputy Head of Fine Art and a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art in the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University, Australia; as well as the Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Course Coordinator and Studio Coordinator of Sculpture & Spatial Practice.

He is currently engaged in developing a major international research project in collaboration with the University of the Arts, London, as the basis of an application for Discovery Project funding from the Australia Research Council. This project is titled ‘Narratives of hybridisation’, and investigates the impact of cultural tourism and transcultural exchange upon the practice of contemporary artists.

Working primarily with found-object based sculpture, installation, digital animation and web-based imagery, Wise has exhibited nationally and internationally, addressing the increasingly fluid or plastic condition of the art work, the context of art works and the artist in contemporary culture.

Research/Professional activities

Academic Prizes and Awards

2007 - Australia Council, Visual Arts & Crafts Board, New Work grant
Centre for Contemporary, Photography, solo exhibition
2004 -Australia Council Visual Arts & Crafts Board Skills Development grant
Tokyo studio residency (February - May 2006)
2004 -Australia Council Visual Arts & Crafts Board Publications & Promotions grant
Curator, 'Academici', international touring exhibition, Melbourne & Rome
2002 - Artist in Residence
Monash University, Melbourn
2001 -Boise Travel Scholarship
[Slade] New York, Australia
1999 -Wingate Rome Scholarship
British School at Rome
1998 - Royal College of Art Residency
Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris
1998 - Serenella Ciclitira Scholarship
Royal College of Ar
1998 - Winner, Alternative Turner Prize
Frank Organisation, London

Curatorial experience

2007 - Curator, ‘Stranger Geography’
Palazzo Vaj, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy
Supported by Monash University
2007 - Co-curator, ‘Strange Geography’,
Kingsgate Gallery, London
Supported by Monash University
2007 - Curator, ‘Jordan Baseman: Tape 1 Tape 2’,
Faculty Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne
2005 - Contributing curator, ‘Extra-Aesthetic’,
Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
2005 - Curator ‘Contemporary Abstraction: Four Melbourne Painters’
Criterion Gallery, Hobart
2004 to 2005 - Curator ‘Academici: Answering the Other Question’
Faculty Gallery, Monash University & BSR Gallery
British School at Rome, Italy
Supported by the Australia Council,
Monash University & the British School at Rome
2003 -Curator - 'Marginalia',
City Gallery, Melbourne Town Hall;
Supported by the City of Melbourne and Monash University
2003 -Co-curator 'Drawing: Marking the terrain'
Faculty Gallery, Monash University;
Supported by the University of West of England, UK
2003 - Co-curator 'The Bold & The Beautiful: New London Art'
Project Space, RMIT, Melbourne;
Carnegie Gallery, Hobart;
Supported by the British Arts Council

Solo Exhibitions

2008 - Natural Disaster
Linden Centre for Contemporary Art
2007 - Rhapsodia
Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
2006 - Superhappiness
Conical, Melbourne
2005 -Kit Wise: New Work
Criterion Gallery, Hobart May
2005 - Sojourner
Westspace, Melbourne
2005 - Roarers
Ocular Lab, Melbourne
2003 -Nocturne
Project Space Gallery, RMIT Melbourne
Inflight Gallery, Hobart
2002 -July Oh, what a sweet thing is this perspective!
Faculty Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne
2001 -Tourist
CAST Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania
2000 - Straordinari Cortili
Palazzo Montoro, Rome
1999 - Kit Wise: Recent Work
British School at Rome

Published Writings

‘Research Community’, catalogue essay for Monash Momentum 2008, Kirra Galleries, Melbourne, June 2008
‘John Young’, Frieze, Issue 115, exhibition review, May 2008
‘Obligate Mutualist Symbiosis’, catalogue essay for Objects in Space, Next Wave Festival 2008, Melbourne, May 2008
‘Kathy Temin’, Frieze, Issue 114, exhibition review, April 2008
‘Kelley Glaister: In flagrante delicto’, catalogue essay for These Endless Days,
Blindside, Melbourne, March 2008
‘Philip Brophy’, Frieze, Issue 113, exhibition review, March 2008
‘Highlights of 2007’, Frieze, Issue 112, feature article (Australian contributor),
January-February 2008
'Labouring Lightly: Australian Drawing Now'
Artlink Vol. 26, feature article, March 2005
'Living Together is Easy'
Frieze, Issue 89, exhibition review, March 2005
'Pointform'
unMagazine, Issue 3, exhibition review, February 2005
'NEW04'
Frieze, Issue 83, exhibition review, September 2004
'Chaotic Attractors: Jake Chapman Lecture Tour 04'
Artlink, Vol. 25, feature article, May 2004
'James Lynch: Let me be your fantasy'
Frieze, Issue 79, exhibition review, January 2004