B. 1977, Victor Harbour / Ngarrindjeri Country
Lives and works in Kyneton / Taungurung Country

Michael Needham’s practice fuses drawing, object-making and sculptural installation that responds to specific sites and cultural contexts. His work explores myth, belief and residual melancholia in the contemporary psyche, focussing on uncanny sensibilities around mimicry and memorialisation. Needham’s works are often remnants of a corporeality no longer present, mimicking historical forms in unfamiliar contexts as a form of reflective critique.  

Needham’s new work, Monument to Muther [sic] (2020), developed for this exhibition, indicates a critical shift in his methodology. It offers humour as a counterpoint, capable of both softening and compounding his work’s weightier associations: death, melancholia, the legacies of colonialism and its imposing presence in the Australian landscape.

Needham has exhibited in numerous Australian group and solo exhibitions and has also exhibited in Italy and Japan. His work has recently been shown in Bendigo, Ballarat, Broken Hill, Lorne, Melbourne, Kyneton, Mildura and Hobart.