Denis Beaubois awarded inaugural Create NSW and MCA Visual Arts

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Congratulations to Denis Beaubois who has been awarded the first Create NSW and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) NSW Visual Arts Mid-Career/Established Fellowship.

The 2019 fellowship includes $30,000 in funding from Create NSW to work on a self-directed professional development program, as well as up to $20,000 for an additional project or acquisition commission from the MCA.

Beaubois works across the fields of video, photography and performance. He lives in Sydney, but was born in Mauritius, and his self-directed program of professional development will include learning the French-based Mauritian creole language, as well as exploring notions of Mauritian polyethnic nationalism and sovereignty.

The artist will travel to Mauritius, undertake a week with the Australian Department of Home Affairs in ACT, and learn new technical and software skills for working with virtual reality.

Beaubois has received numerous awards for his works, including winning the 1998 Bonn Videonale and 2001 judge’s special prize for the Internationaler Medienkunstpreis, both in Germany. His work has been shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, including at the Tate Modern in the UK, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA, and at the Santiago Biennale, Chile.

In announcing the fellowship on 6 December, Create NSW deputy secretary Alex O’Mara said, “Denis Beaubois is a dynamic and acclaimed artist whose works have contributed to current artistic debate… His works strike a powerful chord across the world and his approach is a fine match for this first year of our partnership in celebrating visual artists with the MCA. I’m excited to see how his fellowship program will propel his career further.”

“Denis has contributed substantially to the development of video and performance art in Australia,” added MCA director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE.“The MCA is extremely pleased to be working with Create NSW on this fellowship providing outstanding support to a mid-career artist at a crucial time in their development.”

The fellowship was chosen by a panel of industry peers chaired by Mikala Tai, director of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

News Words by Art Guide Australia