Nathan Beard is an artist working across sculpture, installation, photography and video, currently based in Naarm (Melbourne). Beard’s work draws from his Australian-Thai heritage to unpack the porous and precarious influences of culture and memory. Often working with specialist technicians and detailed fabrication processes such as 3D printed mold making, silicone casting, glass blowing and photogrammetry scanning of artefacts from institutional collections, Beard’s practice both materially and conceptually engages with the commercial and historical production of culture. In exploring the slippery intersection of family history, archives and broad cultural signifiers of ‘Thainess’, Beard’s work articulates the complexities surrounding authenticity and diasporic identity:
“I’m interested in exploring Thainess and the different contexts and influences that shape an understanding of what Thainess is, especially within a Western context—it’s very much rooted in biography. I’m interested in influences that shape perceptions or understandings and disrupting those expectations”
- Nathan Beard in conversation with Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen for Art Guide Australia (November/December 2024 print issue).
Beard has exhibited work extensively as a solo artists across Australia and overseas with exhibitions includes Ratana, his second exhibition at sweet pea (Boorloo, 2024), A Puzzlement at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Gadigal, 2023) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (Boorloo, 2022), Husk at FUTURES (Naarm, 2022), Low Yield Fruit at sweet pea (2022), White Gilt / Siamese Smize at Antidote Festival, Sydney Opera House (Gadigal, 2020), White Gilt 2.0 at First Draft (Gadigal, 2020), White Gilt at Cool Change Contemporary (Boorloo, 2019), Siamese Smize at Turner Galleries (Boorloo, 2018), WA Focus: Nathan Beard at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (Boorloo, 2017), Ad Matres at Artereal (Gadigal, 2015), Anemone at Soy Sauce Factory (Bangkok, 2014), and Obitus at MOANA Project Space (Boorloo, 2014) and Speedy Grandma Gallery (Bangkok, 2013). Nathan’s recent achievements include receiving Creative Australia’s 2024 Debra Porch Award, the 2024 Darebin Art Prize, recipient of the 2019 Creative Australia ACME Studio residency in London and was selected to participate in the Gertrude Studio Artist program, 2023-2025. His work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Artbank, City of Bunbury, John Curtin Gallery and Murdoch University. Beard has been represented by AVA since 2021.