Paul Compton’s drawings, woodcuts and collages are known for their depictions of ghostly apparitions, odd and cosmic beasts, subliminal spaces and playfully conjured portraits.
Paul’s inspirations range from automatic drawing and writing, spiritualism, animals, cultural oddities and religious iconography through to the visual textures of fur, wood and fabric. The conflicting forces of black and white, physical and spiritual, intertwine.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Paul Compton - visual artist
Born Melbourne, 1984
Solo exhibitions:
2023 Apparitions Printmaker Gallery, Melbourne
2017 Noirscapes Printmaker Gallery, Melbourne
2016 kingdom Off the Kerb, Melbourne
2012 Bygones Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Melbourne
2012 Varieté Gecko Studio Gallery, Fish Creek Victoria
2012 Domestic Disturbance Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2010 Houses of Blood and Rapture Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Tender Things Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2006 The Dead Dog Project First Site Gallery, Melbourne
Two-person exhibitions:
2018 Conjurings (with Michael Needham) The Lost Ones Gallery, Ballarat
2011 Lost Is Found (with Priscilla Ambrosini) Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2010 Drift (with Ellen Benson) Library Art Space, Melbourne
2010 The Franky and Paul Show (with Franky Howell) Pigment Gallery, Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2022 Animal Crackers, Satellite Projects, Castan Chambers, Melbourne
2021 ALLone, Satellite Projects (online exhibition)
2019 CUT, Red Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Paperlicious, Red Gallery, Melbourne
2019 The Museum of Platitudes and Aphorisms, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne
2019 The Museum of Platitudes and Aphorisms, C3 Gallery, Melbourne
2018-19 Drawing Strength, Montsalvat, Melbourne
2018 The Mule a Thousand Miles From Home, Jacombe, Victoria
2018 Through a Glass Darkly, Collins Place Gallery, Melbourne
2017 Imaginings, Neospace, Melbourne
2017 First Site 21st Birthday Show, First Site Gallery, Melbourne
2017 Graeme Hildebrand Art Prize for Young Contemporary Artists, Red Gallery, Melbourne
2017 Dark Contrasts, Town Hall Gallery Hawthorn
2017 Cut and Press, Red Gallery, Melbourne
2016 Panoply, Metropolis Gallery, Geelong
2016 Creatures, Queenscliff Gallery & Workshop, Victoria
2016 CUT, Dirty Dozen, Melbourne
2016 Carousel, Melbourne Fringe Festival
2016 Eventide Mornington Peninsula Regional Art Gallery, Victoria (Download the Eventide catalogue PDF here)
2016 Modern Myth Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
2016 Return To Hanging Rock: 40 Years of Picnic At Hanging Rock Mulberry Hill, Victoria
2015 Magical Neospace, Melbourne (Download the Magical catalogue PDF here)
2015 Allusion The Art Vault, Mildura Victoria (Download the Allusion catalogue PDF here)
2015 Group Therapy Brunswick Arts, Melbourne
2015 2015 Silk Cut Award for Lino Cut Prints Glen Eira City Council Gallery, Melbourne
2015 Two of a Kind Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Melbourne
2014 Above the Mantle: 21st Mayoral Art Exhibition, Maroondah Art Gallery, Melbourne
2014 The Bloke Show Project Space/Spare Room, Melbourne
2014 Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Awards 2014
2013-14 Darebin Art Show Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Melbourne
2013 Wonder Room Maroondah Art Gallery, Melbourne (Download the Wonder Room catalogue PDF here)
2013 Monstrous Neospace, Melbourne (Download the Monstrous catalogue PDF here)
2012-13 The Enchanted Dome: The Library and the Imagination State Library of Victoria
2012 Vignette/Vitrene Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2012 Freak of Nature King Family Artspace, Boulder Colorado USA
2011 In Suspense Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2011 Nether Regions St. Heliers Street Gallery, Melbourne
2011 Freak of Nature Switchbank Gallery, Victoria (Download the Freak of Nature catalogue PDF here)
2011 Manly Library Artists' Book Award Manly Library, NSW
2010-11 High Tea Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre, Melbourne
2010 Blackboard Hand Held Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Heidelberg Fine Art Group Show Somewhere Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Small Works 09 Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Linden Postcard Show Linden Gallery, Melbourne
2007 Folio 10 Forty-Five Downstairs, Melbourne
2006 Verisimilitude Jackman Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Function / Satisfaction Goya Galleries, Melbourne
2004 Sweet Sixteen Goya Galleries, Melbourne
2003 Three Hundred and Eight Days Project Space Gallery, Melbourne
Art Prize:
Mayoral Acquisition Prize at the 21st Mayoral Art Exhibition, 2014 Maroondah Art Gallery
Commendation award at the Graeme Hildebrand Art Prize for Young Contemporary Artists, 2017 Red Gallery
Residency:
Print Imaging Practise Residency 2014, RMIT University, Melbourne
Public Collections:
City of Darebin
Maroondah City Council
State Library of Victoria