Tom Nicholson

Comparative monument (Shallal)
Comparative monument (Shallal) 2014-17, Glass tesserae mosaics, wooden boxes, dimensions variable, and two-channel video., Mosaics created with the Mosaic Centre, Jericho, with mosaicists Rafat Al Khatib and Renan Barham, and project management with Osama Hamdan and Iyad Jammed. Artist assistant on mosaic cartoons: Jamie O’Connell. Video camera: Issa Freij, Christian Capurro, Tom Nicholson. Video editing: with Alex Archer. Video graphic: Mark Peters. Translation: Ameen Darwish, Yumi Maes, Reem Jaber, and Rasha Tayeh. Drivers: Walid Ghousheh and Karem Ghousheh. With the generous support and engagement from Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art.
I was born in Indonesia
I was born in Indonesia 2017, 12 unsynchronized HD videos; wooden structure with transportation crate; pencil wall drawings; and 110 resin cast diorama figurines on trestle table, Dimensions variable
Comparitive Monument (Palestine)
Comparitive Monument (Palestine) 2012, Exhibited at the Qalandiya International Biennial 2012.
Installation view
Installation view 2019, Tom Nicholson: Public Meeting at Australia Centre for Contemporary Art. Image by Christian Capurro.
Artist interview Tom Nicholson: Public Meeting (video)
Artist interview Tom Nicholson: Public Meeting (video), Go behind the scenes with artist Tom Nicholson to hear more about his practice and major works in his new solo exhibition 'Public Meeting' at ACCA from 6 April to 16 June 2019.
Gorge photograph
Gorge photograph 2017-19, Charcoal drawings, off-set printed artist’s books for visitors to take away, published by Surpllus, Melbourne, design: Brad Haylock.
Gorge photograph
Gorge photograph 2017-19, Charcoal drawings, off-set printed artist’s books for visitors to take away, published by Surpllus, Melbourne, design: Brad Haylock.
Unfinished monument to Batman’s Treaty
Unfinished monument to Batman’s Treaty 2011-, Ongoing action of distribution of off-set printed A4 paper plaques, to be attached, framed or unframed, to the chimneys in people's living rooms. Unfinished monument to Batman’s Treaty (2011–) is an ongoing public sculpture project engaging Batman’s Treaty, its history and meanings. The work takes as its starting point Melbourne’s first chimney, the chimney built for John Batman by William Buckley. The central component of Unfinished monument is one A4 sheet of paper, a sheet of paper which functions as a monument plaque (see below). Melburnians are invited to attach these plaques to the chimneys in their own living rooms. In this way, the city’s chimneys are gradually re-inscribed as commemorations of the city’s first chimney, becoming parts of an ever-growing monument to the city’s conflicted origins potentially as vast as the city itself.
17 5 Nicholson AGNSW 16
untitled (seven monuments); with Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin, Jonathan Jones
untitled (seven monuments); with Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin, Jonathan Jones 2019, Site specific installations marking the historical boundary of Coranderrk Aboriginal Station. Flagpoles, bricks, bronze plaques, Coranderrk plants, off-set printed leaflet, website, Commissioned by the TarraWarra Museum of Art and now in the custodianship of Yarra Ranges Council, untitled (seven monuments) is the second stage of Future Memorials which began in 2013 with an exhibition of the work of the three artists (Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin, Jonathan Jones and Tom Nicholson), curated by Victoria Lynn.
Installation view of 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny'
Installation view of 'Cartoons for Joseph Selleny' 2014, Dimensions variable, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Evening Shadows
Evening Shadows 2011-12, Work in three parts: a. installation in the Elder Wing of the AGSA of 38 painted copies of H. J. Johnstone's painting Evening shadows, borrowed from citizens in and around Adelaide, and a stack of 10,000 off-set printed posters, each 59.6 x 84 cm; b. installation in the contemporary wing of three hd video works on flatscreens, H. J. Johnstone, Evening shadows, backwater of the Murray River, South Australia, 1880, and one drawing on paper, willow charcoal and compressed charcoal, 80 x 120 cm; c. evolving and ephemeral public art work throughout Adelaide and beyond as citizens display copies of the off-set printed poster at the front of their houses.
Evening Shadows
Evening Shadows 2011-12, Work in three parts: a. installation in the Elder Wing of the AGSA of 38 painted copies of H. J. Johnstone's painting Evening shadows, borrowed from citizens in and around Adelaide, and a stack of 10,000 off-set printed posters, each 59.6 x 84 cm; b. installation in the contemporary wing of three hd video works on flatscreens, H. J. Johnstone, Evening shadows, backwater of the Murray River, South Australia, 1880, and one drawing on paper, willow charcoal and compressed charcoal, 80 x 120 cm; c. evolving and ephemeral public art work throughout Adelaide and beyond as citizens display copies of the off-set printed poster at the front of their houses.
Camp Pell Lecture (with Tony Birch)
Camp Pell Lecture (with Tony Birch) 2008 - 2010, Instruction-based continuous performance: five lectures being read simultaneously, continuously and unsynchronised for the duration of the exhibition by a roster of participants in the exhibition, five video projections.
Nardoo flag-wave
Nardoo flag-wave 2009 - 2010, Monument for the flooding of Royal Park is an elaboration of the artist's book of the same title into the form of a 15 metre frieze. The work describes a proposed monument, which focuses on nardoo, the plant which the 19th-century Australian explorers Burke and Wills furiously consumed during their final days around Cooper’s Creek. The Yantruwanta people had introduced the explorers to the habit of making cakes from nardoo sporocarp, who failed to observe the correct preparation of the seed, mainly due to Burke’s antipathy towards Aboriginal culture and his hostility towards any reliance upon it. Without roasting, the sporocarp contains high levels of thiaminase, which disables human digestion by destroying Thiamine, ultimately resulting in apoptosis, the self-programmed death of cells in the body. Burke and Wills both starved even as they spent most of their final days preparing and consuming copious quantities of nardoo cakes.

Tom Nicholson explores the visual languages of politics and propaganda with a focus on the relationship between actions and their traces. Nicholson was trained in drawing at the Victorian College of the Arts, a tradition that greatly informs his practice, which also includes performance and interdisciplinary projects.

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