Anthony Pelchen lives and works on the Barringgi Gadyin / Wimmera River, NW Victoria, Australia. He was born in Horsham, departed 1979 and returned in 2000 to this river site, 15 km west. He studied Economics at Monash University, 1979-82 and a decade later painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, 1989-82.
He works across mediums and art forms in collaborative and solo work, compelled to ritualize and honour moments in time through making. He filters and mediates what for him is a deep sense of the difficult majesty of living - what plays out personally and collectively. This involves processes of ordering, ritual, and the repetitive use of personally emblematic colours and motifs.
His extremes are collaborative missions and drawing alone at night.
His 11-artist/3-year Malaysia Australia Raft Project (MARP) 2013-15 presented regionally in Natimuk, then Melaka and culminated in Melbourne -Courtyard, Australian Centre for Contemporary (global project, Fluid States - Performances of Unknowing). As a counterpoint, Pelchen revels in the pared-back act of drawing, beginning not knowing and finding something unimagined; dark black charcoal works which hover ambiguously between dystopian and utopian - hybrid swirls of landscape, architecture, the body and something in between.
His ongoing Small Van Artist Residency for Non-Artists, launched during COVID, 2020, playfully melts down collaborative/solo boundaries; Pelchen in the guise of a Japanese Road Worker performing full-moon LED light signals, self-captured as drawings in photographs.
Throughout the 1990's, Pelchen lived in Melbourne and exhibited widely in artist-run, institutional and alternative spaces, including 200 Gertrude Street, the RMIT Project Space, Temple Studios, talk Artists Initiative and St Stephen's Anglican Church. Pivotal aspects of this decade were residencies at 200 Gertrude Street (now Gertrude Contemporary) 1995-6/1999, acquisitions of his work by the National Gallery of Victoria and James Mollison, and meeting performers Yumi Umiumare and Tony Yap in 1998.
On returning to the Wimmera, Pelchen continued his solo work and began long-term collaborations with Umiumare and Yap. At civil-twilight in the foreground of Mount Arapiles 2001, they traversed Pelchens' two-square km land installation 3,492 poly bags and a ploughed path. This grew to notable later projects: Inori-invisible 2003 with Umiumare in Melbourne, Osaka and Copenhagen (Green Room Award nomination: Design for Dance); Spent 2008/8/10 with Yap in Regional Victoria; Melaka Art & Performance Festival (MAPfest) with Yap 2009-12/15/17 (presenting work and curating); MARP with Yap 2013/4/5.
He has exhibited twice in Osaka and has been represented in various painting and drawing prizes, including the Australian Paper Art Awards, National Works on Paper Prize, Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Blake Prize and the Len Fox Painting Award. In 2008, Pelchen participated in Drought – Cross Cultural Collaborations, involving solo and collaborative work presented at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2009, his installation Spent and video work Well were commissioned for the Murray Darling Palimpsest #7 in Mildura. His collaborative artist book with writer Andrew Lindsay, Difficult Majesty, was launched at the National Gallery of Victoria and shortlisted for the 2010 Mackay Artspace, Libris Awards. In 2011 he participated in the Lake Hindmarsh Project at 27 Gipps Street Gallery, Melbourne and Revisitations at the VAC, Latrobe University, Bendigo.
Pelchen has an ongoing relationship with Malaysia. During his 2010 Asialink residency at Rimbun Dahan, Kuala Lumpur, he made an ambitious body of work, Kuang Road Prayer - exhibited in Melaka 2010, Horsham Regional Art Gallery 2013 then Latrobe University VAC Bendigo, 2015. He also formed a new Visual Arts program for MAPfest in Melaka, initiating new venue relationships with the National University of Singapore and Heritage Trust of Malaysia, bringing together 22 artists from Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Netherlands and Afganistan over 2010-12. In 2014, he participated in We Fall Into the Sea To Become an Island at the Penang ARI, Run Amok, with further projects in Melaka for MAPfest (MARP 2014, Melaka Swabs 2018) and a Baboon House residency, 2017.
In 2020/202, Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria grants supported Pelchen's lockdown project, Signals from the dark - Natimuk; a four-artist light installation and performance series. He also had his first showing of a small selection of the hundreds of night drawings at project6.88, Adelaide.
Other residencies include Bundanon Trust (2001,2003), Parks Victoria (2002), Akai-Kenko Centre - Nou-Machi, Japan (2005,2007), Falls Creek (2022) and Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery - Police Point (2024).He has been a recipient of Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria grants for New Work, Presentation and International Cultural Exchange.
His work is represented in collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, John McBride Collection -Sydney, James Mollison Collection – Melbourne, Australian Print Workshop, Bundanon Trust, Horsham Regional Art Gallery.
ANTHONY PELCHEN
Born Horsham, Victoria, Australia 1960
Studies
1989-91 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting), Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
1979-81 Bachelor of Economics (Accounting), Monash University
Solo Exhibitions/ Installations/Self-curated projects
2022 A Familiar Place I Don’t Know, Project6.33 Adelaide – drawings
2020-25 Kanazawa Jack – Small Van Artist Residency for Non- Artists
2021 Signals from the dark – Natimuk
2018 Melaka Swabs; Melaka Art & Performance Festival, Malaysia
2015/14/13 Malaysia Australia Raft Project: courtyard Australian Centre for Contemporary Art 2015/St Paul’s Hill, Melaka, Malaysia 2014/ Natimuk, Victoria 2013
2015 Kuang Road Prayer, Latrobe University Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo
2014 We Fall Into the Sea to Become An Island, Run Amok gallery, Penang
2013 Kuang Road Prayer, Horsham Regional Art Gallery
2012/11/10 Curated Visual Arts program, MAP Fest), Melaka, Malaysia
2012 Code Maroon, Baboon House, Melaka, Malaysia
2010 Kuang Road Prayer, No. 8 Heeren Street Heritage Centre, Melaka, Malaysia
2010/9 Spent: Horsham RAG/Palmpsest09 Mildura/Ballarat Gold Mining Exchange
2009 The sum of the days (the value of the parts), St Pauls church, Melaka, Malaysia
2001 3,492 poly bags and a ploughed path, Wimmera land installation
1999 14,171 days, St Stephen's Anglican Church, Richmond
1999 Cover me in mud, bury me in wheat (throw me in the river), Horsham Reg. Art Gallery
1999 vectis, talk artists initiative, Melbourne
1997 Looking with mouth open, singing with eyes closed, The Project Space, RMIT, Melb
1997 Cover me in mud (bury me in wheat, throw me in the river), Temple Studios, Melb
1996 /95 Vectis/ I Lay Me Down; Studio 12 at 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions / Installations
2024/5 Mirror, Horsham Regional Art Gallery
2024/5 Len Fox Painting Award, Castlemaine Art Museum
2017 Printmaking in the Wimmera, Horsham Regional Art Gallery
2017 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery
2016 Pushing the Sky, Horsham Regional Art Gallery
2013 Blake Prize, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney / Jewish Museum of Victoria
2012 Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Art Gallery of Ballarat
2012 The Kick Ass Painting Show, Fontanelle Gallery, Adelaide; curated by Brigid Noone.
2011 Revisitations, Latrobe University, Bendigo - curated by Lella Cariddi
2011 Lake Hindmarsh Project, Gipps Street Gallery Melb, curated by Dr Sheridan Palmer
2010 Survival, Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia
2010 Libris Awards, Artspace, Mackay
2009 Difficult Majesty, artist book; Ballarat University Post Office Gallery
2009 Gulag Studios1994-2009, Counihan Gallery Melb, Curated by Dr Sheridan Palmer
2008 Drought – CCC Collaborations, curated by Lella Cariddi; Fed. Square / ACMI / NGV
2006 Being at Bundanon, toured Victoria /NSW
2004 The Alice Prize, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs
2004 The Spirit of Football, National Gallery of Victoria
2004 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery
2002 5, with Hisako Tsuzuku, Yumi Umiumare & Tony Yap; Mass Gallery, Melbourne
2001 Australian Paper Art Awards: Melb / Adelaide / Sydney
2000 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery
2000 Anthony Pelchen, Hisako Tsuzuku and Shukou Tsuchiya, Takarazu, Japan
1998 National Works On Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
1997 The Alice Prize, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs
1997 New Acquisitions of Contemporary Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria
1996 12th Biennial Prints Acquisitive Exhibition, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
1995 Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship, Victorian College of the Arts
Collaborative projects
2013/12 installation, with Frank Van de Ven, Code Maroon, Melaka/Melbourne
2009 Installation, with Tony Yap, Spent/Merangkori, St Pauls Church, Melaka/ Ballarat Gold Mining Exchange/Palimpsest #7, Mildura
2008 Installation, with Tony Yap, Difficult Majesty, Punctum, Bendigo
2003/2000 Installation for Inori-invisible with Yumi Umiumare, Copenhagen/Melbourne/Osaka
Grants / Awards / Residencies
2024 MPRG Artist-in-Residence Program (AiR), Monmar/ Police Point, Point Nepean
2022 Falls Creek Residency – Signals from a mountain project
2021 ACT Natimuk, Creative Lab Grant/ Regional Arts Vic, Quick Response Grant
2020 Creative Victoria, Sustaining Creative Worker Initiative
2013/14 Arts Victoria Development grants
2010 Asialink residency, Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia
2009 Regional Arts Victoria – Arts Development
2008 Arts Victoria – Arts Development grant
2007/5 Regional Arts Victoria – Arts Development - Japan Residency/New Work
2003 Bundanon Trust residency
2003 Arts Victoria – Cultural Exchange Program Grant (Denmark)
2002 Parks Victoria residency - Warrandyte, Victoria
2001 Bundanon Trust Residency
2001 Green Room Award nomination – Design for Dance (Inori-in-visible)
2001 Arts Victoria - Arts Development: New Work - Presentation
1999 Arts Victoria - Cultural Exchange Program Grant (Japan)
1999 Arts Victoria - Arts Development Program Grant
1999/94-96 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne – live in/studio residencies
1991 Victorian College of the Arts - Theodore Urbach Award for Painting
Publication / Interviews
2012 Jonathan Nichols: Anthony Pelchen, Kuang Road Prayer, Horsham Reg. Art Gallery
2011 Lella Cariddi, catalogure essay, Revisitations project
2011 Dr Sheridan Palmer, catalogue essay, Lake Hindmarsh Project
2010 Portrait: Anthony Pelchen, with Shefah Szetu on 6th Nov 2010, BFM 89.9, The Business Station, Kuala Lumpur: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRfBftAXYlA
2010 Dr Sheridan Palmer, catalogue essay, Spent, Jubilee Hall, Horsham
2009 Dr Sheridan Palmer, Gulag Studios 1994-2009, catalogue essay
2009 Artists talk: Drought- Perceptions & Propositions, Ballarat University
2004 ABC Radio National interview with Julie Copeland, 12th Dec, The Maker: Anthony Pelchen
2001 essays: 3492 poly bags… www.abc.net.au/arts/fertile/essay_6.htm
2001 Leslie Harding, Re-thinking the Vital Illusion, Craft Victoria Quarterly – Spring Issue
2001 Leslie Harding & Carolyn Laffan, Marks of Intimacy, Australian Paper Art Awards
2009 Sandra Bridie, talk artists initiative, Melbourne
1999 Peter Timms, The Age, 16 June
1997 Peter Timms, Back to the Land, Herald Sun, 28 May
1997 Robert Nelson, The Age, 8 January
1995 Jenny Zimmer, The Age, 21 June
Collections
National Gallery of Victoria, Bundanon Trust, Horsham Regional Art Gallery,
Australian Print Workshop, Federation University, Artbank, Melbourne Airport; Private: John McBride Collection–Sydney, James Mollison Collection– Melbourne
Travel
2018/2017/14/12/11/10/9/3Malaysia; 2014/7/5/3/0 Japan; 2003 Denmark, France; 1991 Indonesia; 1983 North America, Mexico, Southern Europe, Scotland
