Christian Thompson (artist) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Christian Thompson AO
Born	Christian Andrew William Thompson 1978 Gawler, South Australia
Nationality	Australian
Education	University of Southern Queensland, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University of Oxford

Christian Thompson (born 1978), also known as Christian Bumbarra Thompson, is a famous Australian artist. He is from the Bidjara people, an Aboriginal Australian group from his father's side. His Aboriginal background is very important in his art. He creates amazing photography, video installations, and sound recordings. After winning a special scholarship, he studied for his doctorate degree in Fine Arts at Oxford University in England. His art has been shown in many galleries across Australia and around the world.

Christian Thompson's Early Life and Learning

Christian Thompson was born in Gawler, South Australia, which is north of Adelaide. He trained to be an artist in Toowoomba, Queensland. His father's family is from the Bidjara people, who are Aboriginal Australians from central Queensland. He also has Chinese, Irish, Norwegian, and Jewish family roots. Thompson's great-great-grandfather was King Billy of Bonny Doon Lorne, an important leader of the Bidjara people.

Christian moved around a lot as a kid because his father was in the RAAF. He lived in places like Darwin, Wagga Wagga, and Adelaide. He spent his childhood holidays in Barcaldine and in the bush. There, he learned about his father's culture and traditions from his grandmother and great-aunts. Many people in his family were creative artists, so he grew up surrounded by art. His art teacher also encouraged him a lot.

He earned his first art degree at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. In 1999, he moved to Melbourne to continue his art studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

While studying, Thompson was inspired by artists like Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. He also loved the music and culture of the 1980s and '90s, especially punk music.

He was very active in the Melbourne art scene. He showed his own art and helped organize art shows for other artists. He also helped create the MHUL Workshop, which was an annual event for young Indigenous artists from all over Australia.

In 2009, he completed a Masters degree in Theatre in Amsterdam. In 2010, he moved to the University of Oxford after winning the Charlie Perkins Scholarship. This scholarship helped him get his doctorate degree in Fine Art. He was one of the first two Indigenous Australians to ever study at Oxford.

After his time at Oxford, he moved to London. He said that a lot of his life experiences and memories were connected to Europe. This influenced his art and how he saw the world.

Christian Thompson's Art Career

Christian Thompson's early art explored the connection between shapes and how people perform. Later, he started using photography and video to show the performance side of his textile sculptures and detailed costumes.

In 2002, Thompson became well-known in the Australian art world with his first series, Blaks Palace. This series included photographs and giant oversized sweaters. His art often explores what identity means and how it's always changing. He brings together different ideas and themes in his work.

His photo series Lost Together was created in the Netherlands. There, Thompson worked on a live performance that mixed his Bidjara and European backgrounds. He combined classical music, traditional rhythms, and stories into beautiful, flowing sounds. His sound art focuses on the natural musicality of his traditional language and how it can be expressed in modern and experimental music.

His work has been featured in many national and international magazines, including Frieze and Vogue. He was also recognized for awards like the Kate Challis RAKA Award and the Blake Prize.

Exhibitions and Art Collections

Christian Thompson has shown his photographs, videos, and performance art in many solo and group exhibitions in Australia and around the world. He was the first Aboriginal artist to have a studio at Gertrude Street Contemporary Art Spaces in Melbourne from 2006 to 2007. In 2008, he started international art residencies in Amsterdam and the United States.

His art is kept in many public and private collections in Australia and overseas. These include the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia. His work is also in collections owned by famous people like Cate Blanchett.

His art was part of the 17th International Biennale of Sydney in 2010 and the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art.

His 2010 series King Billy is held by the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. This artwork honors his great-great-grandfather, King Billy of Bonnie Doon Lorne.

In 2011, Thompson took part in international residencies in New York and Montreal. His artwork Gamu Mambu was shown in a big exhibition of Korean and Australian art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Thompson's video work HEAT 2010 was included in the National Gallery of Australia's second National Indigenous Art Triennial in 2012.

His 2011 video Dhagunyilangu, which means brother, features a British opera singer. The singer performs a song written in Bidjara, one of many Aboriginal languages that were nearly lost during colonization. This video was shown at the TarraWarra Biennial in Melbourne and the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University in 2012. Thompson said that the impact of this series on other artists and experts has been the most rewarding part of his career.

In 2014, he became the first artist to receive the Massey University International Arts Residency in Wellington, New Zealand. There, he worked with musician James Young and recorded his own version of Dhagunyilangu. He also created a video of himself singing in Bidjara. This video, called Refuge, is part of a larger series of works called Eight Limbs, shown in Wellington in 2014.

In January 2015, Trinity College at Oxford University removed old paintings from its dining room for the first time in over 400 years to display an exhibition of Thompson's work.

A major exhibition of his work called Ritual Intimacy was shown at UNSW Art & Design Galleries in Sydney from May to July 2018. It had also been shown at other galleries in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide.

From May 2018, he worked on his first virtual reality project. This project, called Bayi Gardiya (Singing Desert), was shown at the ACMI in May 2019. In this seven-minute artwork, Thompson sings in the Bidjara language, which is being brought back to life after being almost lost. Thompson was the first artist to receive the Mordant Family Commission VR, a special program that supports artists who have never worked with virtual reality before.

Awards and Recognition

• 2010: Received the first Charlie Perkins Scholarship to Oxford University. He was among the first Aboriginal Australians to attend Oxford in its 900-year history.
• 2010: Shortlisted for the Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards.
• 2012: Received an honorable mention for the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize.
• 2012: Finalist for The Anne Landa Award.
• 2016: Received the ACME Studio London Residency from the Australian Council for the Arts.
• 2017: Awarded the first Mordant Family VR Commission at ACMI.
• 2018: Made an Officer of the Order of Australia. This award recognized his "outstanding service to the visual arts as a sculptor, photographer, video and performance artist, and as a role model for young Indigenous artists."
• 2019: Became a research affiliate at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University.
• 2020: Won the Bowness Photography Prize for his work "Rule of three".