Greg Donovan

Research concentrations home | Visual Art and Design Research Group | Critical Difference: Cultural Diversity and Regionality | Zero Waste SA Research Centre

Greg is a member of the Digital Art Research Experiment (DARE) research group.

Artist statement

'A work of art is about identifying. It is part of a political and cultural environment involving the selective process of choosing to do certain things. The making of art is not only grounded in the development of applied and manipulative skills but linked in a process of identification to a particular time and space. It is a visual, historical and cultural language with destabilising potential.'

Greg Donovan's research and studio practice explores the connection between social inequality defined by space and notions of cultural displacement and its representations. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally with works held in public and private collections. Greg has been an exhibiting artist and teacher since 1978. He is a Senior Lecturer, Portfolio Leader of Teaching and Learning, and Program Director in the School of Art, Architecture and Design.

'My work has consistently been underpinned by clearly defined narrative structures connected to a social/ political consciousness. At present I am researching and exploring the linkage between particular images, for example, photo images and cognitive "distance". The kind of practices related to image production and representation within digital media. The way an audience responds to overt and covert image reproduction and representations. I am interested in subverting these representations.

Further to my research, I am interested in erasure as it necessarily involves levels of transience with one layer either being removed or replaced with another and as a consequence each layer providing a level of transparency, with visual information hidden or exposed below or within another. These layers of information, while not providing a conclusive narrative, produce an assumed and culturally identifiable visual dialogue – a kind of "imperial gaze". Thus my studio practice engages with both layering and erasing, reinforcing my interest in subverting the image, reproducibility and photographic representations.'