Alan Constable

He has been working on his series of ceramic cameras since 2007 and works from this series were represented at the 2009 Australian Ceramic Triennale in Sydney and featured in a solo exhibition of his work, Clay Cameras, at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. Thirteen works from this series were acquired for the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in 2014, and appeared in their blockbuster exhibition of contemporary art, Melbourne Now, in the same year.

Constable was born in Melbourne. His "fascination with light and love of cameras" began at the age of eight, when he would construct intricate replicas of cameras, made from cereal cartons and glue. As artist Peter Atkins states, this early "interest in cameras – objects that are totally reliant on vision to find, frame and capture an image – is not without irony," due to the fact that Constable is both legally blind and deaf. He participated in his first group exhibition in 1987 at St Martin's Theatre Gallery in South Yarra, Melbourne and shortly thereafter he began regularly working at Arts Project Australia (APA), an organisation devoted to supporting and promoting artists with an intellectual disability. Although Constable received no formal training, his participation in the studio program at APA gave him access to fine art materials and the informal tuition provided by the practicing artists employed by the organisation. Following the commencement of his work at APA he began exhibiting regularly in Australia and participated in his first international group exhibitions in 1995, in the US and Belgium.

Both Constable's lack of formal training and disability has identified him as one of the key figures within the Outsider Art category in Australia. This categorisation is confirmed by his repeated inclusion in Outsider Art exhibitions and fairs, both in Australia and in the USA [see Exhibitions]. However, in recent years his work has also achieved critical success in the wider sphere of the Australian contemporary art institution and his first solo exhibition occurred at Helen Gory Galerie, a commercial art gallery located in Melbourne, in 2009. This exhibition was quickly followed by his inclusion in the Melbourne Now exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2014, a solo exhibition in Los Angeles curated by the artist Ricky Swallow in 2013 and his inclusion an exhibition curated by the Museum of Everything at the Kunsthal, Rotterdam, in 2016. A multi-disciplinary artist, Constable's drawings and paintings are typically depictions of landscapes, solitary figures and animals, which are sourced from expired books and magazines, such as National Geographic. His style for both his two dimensional and ceramic works has been attributed to the way in which he utilises his extremely limited sight to focus on a singular aspect of a scene or subject. This stylistic focus, the selection of his subject matter and the tactile nature of his works (which often feature the imprint of the artist's fingers on the clay surface) imply a close personal relationship between the artist and the works; as David Hurlston, Curator of Australian Art at the NGV, notes, the ceramic cameras "become a very personal and touching tribute. [They] contain traces of humanity." His work has been compared that of Claes Oldenburg, in that both artists transform utilitarian objects by "altering scale and exploiting differences in materials" and former NGV curator Alex Baker has compared his work to that of Philip Guston, stating that "if Philip Guston was a ceramicist, these are the kind of objects he would make."

Alan Constable: Close –Up, Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane, 2015 Alan Constable, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, 2015 Alan Constable/Ten Cameras, Curated by Ricky Swallow, South Willard, Los Angeles, 2013 Viewfinder: Alan Constable Survey, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2011 Constable, Stills Gallery, Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales, 2011 Alan Constable Clay Cameras, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, 2009

Linden Postcard Show, Linden New Art Gallery, St Kilda, Victoria 2025 Gold Coast International Ceramic Art Award, Gold Coast City Gallery, Gold Coast, 2016 Clay: it's a matter of substance, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2016 Museum of Everything, Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2016 Tell 'em I'm dead, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2016 It takes more than 140 characters to write a novel, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2015 Victorian Craft Award, Craft, Melbourne, 2015 Polaroid Project, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Horsham, 2014 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University Art Gallery, Melbourne, 2014 Melbourne Art Fair 2014, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne (1994 – 2014) Renegades: Outsider Art, Moree Plains Gallery, NSW, 2014 Into the Vault and Out of the Box, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2014 Renegades: Outsider Art, The Arts Centre Gold Coast, Queensland, 2014 Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, 2014 Chicago Expo: Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Chicago, USA, 2013 Nocturne, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2013 Manningham Victorian Ceramic Art Award, Manningham Art Gallery, 2013 Outsiderism, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, 2013 Error and Judgement, Arts Project Australia Gallery Melbourne, 2012 Exhibition #4, Museum of Everything, London, 2011 The Shilo Project, national exhibition, 2009 - 2011 This Sensual World, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2011 National Gallery of Victoria 150th event, Melbourne, 2011 Human Nature, Alan Lane Community Gallery: Warrnambool Art Gallery, 2011 Hobart Art Prize, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 2010 Pacifica, Gallery Impaire, Paris, France, 2010 Snapshot, ACGA Gallery, Federation Square, Melbourne, 2009 Off the Edge: Ceramics Triennale, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney, 2009 BloodLines: Art and the Horse, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, 2009 Alan Constable & Julian Martin, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 2009 Clay Cameras, Centre for Contemporary Photography, (CCP) Melbourne, 2009 17th Annual Outsider Art Fair, The Mart, New York, 2009 Short Stories, Tall Tales and the Way They Wore Them, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2008 Pearls of Arts Project Australia: The Stuart Purves Collection, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of Fine Arts, UNSW Sydney, 2008 The Dinner Party, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2007 Private and Confidential, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2007 Double Take, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2005 A Sense of Place, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 2003 Face Up, Idiom Studio, New Zealand, 2002 Arterial - artists from Arts Project Australia, Paralympic Arts Festival, Sydney Opera House, 2000 2000 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 2000 Works on Paper, Australian Galleries, Sydney, 1999 Connexions Particulières, MADMusée and Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Liège, Belgium, 1999 Nine Artists from Arts Project Australia, Australian Galleries, Melbourne, 1999 The Inner View, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1999 Prints & Artists' Books, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 1997 Border Crossing, McClelland Regional Gallery, Langwarrin, 1996 Wild Things, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, 1996 Reversed Image, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, 1995 MADMusée, Liège, Belgium, 1995 Vita Gallery, Portland, Oregon, USA, 1995 Beyond Words, National Gallery of Victoria, 1994 International Works on Paper Fair, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 1993 Gone to PAC, National Gallery of Victoria, 1993 Inside Out/Outside In, National Gallery of Victoria, 1992 Arts Project, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, 1991