Biography
Working across several mediums including live and video-based performance and painting, Jaye Early’s work is primarily autobiographical. With a PhD in Visual Art from The University of Melbourne, the conceptual foundation to Early’s work is exploring the effect of revealing the personal aspects of Self to the public.
Oscillating between self-mockery and sincerity, the artist’s work creates a forum for his own artistic (and non-artistic) failures, successes, self-delusion and disappointments. As Early states, “I become my own subject, often using my body as a site for art-making. I am stimulated by exploring the reality in and between what is often not permissible in public spaces and spheres. With a focused interest in the authenticity of suppressed emotions, I am wanting to navigate and respond to the consequences of placing the personal into the public.”
Whether navigating hesitant paths of fragility and fear that are present within a variety of, often invisible, private and public social contracts, or the emotional anxieties associated with living in a late-capitalist landscape, Early’s work aims to consciously transform personal dislocations into a visual strategy of self- disclosure. Through vibrant abstractions with comical elements Early paradoxically plays with themes that are generally viewed as sombre in the mainstream, such as death and loss.
Early has participated in numerous Solo Exhibitions in the USA, Denmark and Australia. Early is the recipient of two post graduate tertiary scholarships and has been a finalist in ten prestigious Australian Art Awards including The 2020 Lester Art Prize.
Education
2015 – 2018 PhD (Visual Art), Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne
2007 – 2009 MA of Studio Art (Painting), Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney
2005 – 2007 MA Art Administration, UNSW Art & Design
1998 – 2000 BA Art History/Theory, UNSW Art & Design, The University of New South Wales
Solo Exhibitions
2018 Death defines the conditions of living and all advice is autobiographical, Kings Artist-Run, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Private life is public business, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne, Australia
2016 All of a sudden I felt very powerful and strong then suddenly I didn’t, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 The history of me on my breath, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 One day you will die. I’m betting on myself. N/A Space, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Cowardly Custard, M2 Space, Sydney, Australia
2012 I better read between the lines in case I’m needed when I’m older. Blank_Space, Sydney, Australia
Selected Group exhibitions
2021 Lethridge Small Scale Art Award
2020 Bulleke-bek International Screen Marathon, GALLERY INC., Melbourne, Australia
2019 Kensington Contemporary, New Agency, Melbourne, Australia
2019/2020 Contemporary Venice, ITSLIQUID International Art Show, Venice, Italy
2019 Friends and Family, Diane Singer, Melbourne, Australia
2019 PHOTOSTATS Redux, George Paton Gallery Project Spaces, Melbourne, Australia
2019 Linden Art prize, Linden New Art, Melbourne, Australia
2019 The Koorie Art Prize, Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Sir John Sulman Finalist exhibition, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Australia
2018 Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Carriageworks, Sydney, Australia
2018/19 Everyone just wants to tell their story. The Hole, New York, USA
2018 B- SIDE Blindside Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Exhibition Title, Train/ennial (First Nations Contemporary artists), c3 Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2018 Double-Bind, Testing Grounds, Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia
2017 Nosedive, Clearing Gallery, New York, USA
2017 ROI Art Prize finalist exhibition, Melbourne, Australia2017 Darebin Art Prize finalist exhibition, Melbourne, Australia.
2017 Darebin Art Prize finalist exhibition, Melbourne, Australia.
2017 The Bureau For The Organisation of Origins, BLINDSIDE Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2016 Provenance Does Matter: Living with Contemporary Art Part 2, Gallery 369, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia
2016 Provenance Does Matter: The Collectors’ Exhibition, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015-16 The Koorie Art Show, Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne, Australia
2015 f generation: feminism art progressions, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Sydney Contemporary, Sydney, Australia
2015 Linden Postcard Show 2015, Linden New Art, Melbourne, Australia
2015 Proud, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 All About Art I Brisbane, Brisbane, Australia
2014 Finalist, Victorian Indigenous Art Awards, Melbourne, Australia
2014 GL RY, City Square, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Finalist, Black Swan Prize For Portraiture, Perth, Australia
2013 Interviews, The Spectrum, New York, USA
2013 Control, Rock Bar, New York, USA
2013 The invisibility of waiting…WAS, Copenhagen, Denmark
2012 Vertical Canvas, Art & About Sydney, Sydney, Australia
2012 Darkness exhibited: evil X-mas at WAS (group show), WAS (Wonderland Art Space) Absalongade 21B DK. 1658 Copenhagen, Denmark
2012 Swedish Queens, The DL, New York, USA
2012 Femail: You’re the Inspiration, Abrons Arts Center, New York, USA
2012 Google exhibition, Sydney Fringe Festival, Sydney, Australia
2012 Art Takes Times Square, New York, USA
2010 Seduce me, Monstrosity Gallery, Sydney Australia 2010 Festival Gallery: Visual Arts component. New Mardi Gras (Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras) Festival TAP gallery, Sydney, Australia
2010 It’s not the homosexual that is perverse, but the society in which s/he lives, Participant Inc., New York, USA
2009 bucket. MOP Projects, Sydney, Australia
2009 SEX PORN ART. Sedition Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2009 having a bad/good day. MSA Grad Exhibition, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, Australia
2008-09 Darkness exhibited: evil X-mas at WAS (group show), WAS (Wonderland Art Space) Absalongade 21B DK. 1658 Copenhagen V. Denmark
Grants and Awards
2021 Finalist – 2021 Lethridge Small Scale Art Award
2020 Finalist – Lester Art Prize
2019 Finalist – Linden Art Prize
2019 Finalist – Koorie Art Show
2018 Finalist – Sir John Sulman Prize
2018 Finalist – Redland Art Award
2018 Finalist – The Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize
2017 Finalist – Darebin Art Prize
2017 Finalist – ROI Art Prize
2016 Finalist – Koorie Art Prize
2016 Finalist – Hornsby Art Prize
2016 Finalist – Redland Art Award
2016 Finalist – Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize
2015 Winner – The University of Melbourne Murrup Barak (The Koorie Art Show)
2015 The University of Melbourne Prestigious and Access Award: The Fay Marles Scholarship for Indigenous Graduate Research Students, Melbourne, Australia
2015 The University of Melbourne: The Scovell Gardener Family Fund for Indigenous Graduate Students, Melbourne, Australia
2014 Finalist – Victorian Indigenous Art Awards, Melbourne, Australia
2013 Semi-finalist – Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, Australia
2013 Finalist – Black Swan Prize For Portraiture, Perth, Australia
2010 Winner – Mardi Gras Gallery Award
Acquisitions & Collections
2018 Private Collection
2017 National Gallery of Victoria
2017 Private Collection
2016 National Gallery of Victoria
2016 Private Collection
2016 The University of Victoria
2016 Brooklyn Art Library, New York
2015 Private Collection
2014 Morningside College of TAFE, Brisbane
Published
2019 Early, Jaye and Toby Juliff, The Self-Design of Contemporary Confessional Art, The Journal of Visual Art Practice, Taylor & Francis Online. Accepted October.
- Early, J, “Private Realms made Public: ‘Technologies of the Self’ as Agency and Resistance within Performance and Video-Based Video Art,” in The Cosmic and the Corporeal: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Time, Space and Body, eds. Deb Black and Iswarya, Visha, (Institute of Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Wellington, New Zealand, 2016), 1-4.
2013 Art Takes Times Square (hardback catalogue)
2010 Try State Magazine, New York. Issue 3 Spring
2009 Pisszine, Issue 4, New York. Fall issue
2009 Simpson. P., I’m a Liar, (interview) SPUNK magazine: a magazine exploring male genders, P 45-45.
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