John Gillies

 John Gillies - Video Work 

John Gillies is one of Australia’s most long-standing and important practitioners in the field of video. At the core of this exhibition, based on a survey exhibition at Performance Space, Sydney in 2004, are key installation works stretching back over 15 years that collectively highlight Gillies’ pioneering work with the formal languages and histories of video (for example, his exploration of appropriation and montage) and his integration of sound and performance practices within the video medium. 

Techno/Dumb/Show (1991), developed with The Sydney Front out of their performance work of the same title is one of Gillies’ most celebrated pieces and a key example of montage in Australian video. The Mary Stuart Tapes (2000) evolved out of a performance work – Mary Stuart – developed in collaboration with Clare Grant and presented at Performance Space in 1998. The video work literally projects the figure of Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart, played by Grant, into the present, walking through city streets and underground walkways at night declaiming to the camera. The most recent work presented here is The de Quincey Tapes (2001), a single channel video loop for projection comprising a set of visual vignettes featuring dancer, choreographer and performance maker Tess de Quincey: the face; the glance; a turning body; a wild rustle of foliage and light/dark forms. 

John Gillies is a Queensland born, Sydney based artist who has worked across video, film, sound and performance since 1980. He has participated in a range of major exhibitions within Australia and internationally, including Recent Australian Video Installation (ACCA, Melbourne, 1986), Australian Perspecta (AGNSW, Sydney, 1991), Strangers in Paradise (Museum of Modern Art, Seoul, 1992), and Spectrascope (Performance Space, 2000). His screen work has been extensively presented in international programs and festivals including Vídeo Brasil, Ars Electronica, Arhuus Video Festival, London Film Festival, Video Positive, Sound Basis, New York Video Festival and World Wide Video Festival amongst many others. Gillies has also curated a range of screen-art programs including Mixed Bodies: Recent Australian Video for Festival da Imagem em Movemento (Brazil, 1998) and Landscape/Mediascape (Sydney Film Festival, 2001) and is curator of the International Screen category for dLux media arts’ d>art 2004 program. John Gillies teaches in Time-Based Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.