Tiana Jefferies

Statement

Tiana Jefferies is an Australian artist working predominantly in sculpture and installation. Her practice explores ecological intimacies and how they form in public spaces. Her works borrow visual language from playground equipment, camping gear and outdoor architectures such as bird hides. These materials and visual cues are rearranged to playfully imagine structures for queer and ecological intimacies. At the core of Jefferies’ practice is a desire to evoke a specific affective tone through thoughtful material compositions. Informed by queer theory and irreverent ecocriticism, Jefferies’ teetering sculptures delight in ironic slippages and glimmer with joyful degeneracy.

The Lord Mayor’s Creative Fellowships are an initiative of Brisbane City Council.

GlogauAIR Project

While at GlogauAIR, I plan to pursue my interests in the coalescence of architectures, bodies and ecologies. It is my hope to learn from existing ecologies in Berlin, from the garden at GlogauAIR to the bodies moving through Tempelhofer Feld. I am interested in the architectures that determine ecological relationships, the way they assist certain bodies’ intimacies and hinder others. I am particularly interested in relationships that might be considered naughty or deviant, that reject the use prescribed by an architecture in order to find joy or pleasure. From these observations, studio outcomes will experiment with casting and built assemblages to form sculptures that engage with theatrical and camp aesthetics.

Installation

CV Summary

Education

• 2021 Master of Philosophy (Creative Practice), Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane
• 2018 Bachelor of Visual Arts. Queensland College Art, Brisbane
• 2016 Study Exchange, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh

Solo Exhibitions

• 2023 teetering, tittering, tits up, Metro Arts.
• 2022 Works from the Hope Street Studio, Town Square Vitrines, Fish Lane.
• 2021 like a spectre, but you can feel it, Wreckers Artspace, Woolloongabba.
• 2020 holding hands with the kerbside, QUT Kelvin Grove
• 2020 At the meniscus, Frank Moran Gallery, Kelvin Grove
• 2019 Cavitation, Dumb Dumb ARI, East Brisbane
• 2016 Celebrate/Commemorate, The Project Gallery, Edinburgh

Group Exhibitions

• 2023 Reflections, Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne
• 2022 SUPERCUT 3, Outer Space, Brisbane
• 2022 entwined as others, The Old Lock Up, Maroochydore (with Helen Hardess)
• 2021 Birds and Language, Sydney College of Art (with Helen Hardess, curated by Madeleine Kelley)
• 2021 Excerpts, The Block, Kelvin Grove
• 2020 WildWalls, The Walls Art Space, Gold Coast
• 2020 {dys} functional, Outer Space, Brisbane (with Alannah Dair)
• 2020 Eviction Party, Metro Arts, Brisbane (curated by Erika Scott)
• 2019 New Materiality, House Conspiracy, Brisbane
• 2017 Sculpture ‘17, Queensland College of Art
• 2017 River St Studios, Project Gallery, QCA
• 2017 [working title], POP Gallery, Woolloongabba

Prizes and Awards

• 2022 Redland Art Awards (finalist)
• 2021 Dorothy Birt Memorial Art Prize, Queensland University of Technology
• 2018 Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence, Queensland College of Art

Residencies and Workshops

• 2023 GlogauAIR Art Resedency Berlin, (upcoming, October-December 2023)
• 2022 Hope Street Studio Residency, facilitated by Griffith University Art Museum and ARIA Property Group
• 2022 positive impressions of negative space workshop, The Old Lock Up, Maroochydore (with Helen Hardess)
• 2020 A Positive Take on Negative Space workshop – ‘The Shed’ at The Old Museum
• 2020 Sculptors Queensland Residency

Gallery