about
Tony Windberg is an Australian artist who is passionate about making landscape art. For 3 decades, his artistic curiosity has driven his exploration of materials and techniques. His illusionistic artworks question the nature of realism and how we see the world.
Tony is also an experienced tutor who enthusiastically shares his knowledge of art. He teaches a wide range of media including painting, drawing and print-making.
art career:
Tony Windberg's first solo exhibition was in 1989, 3 years after finshing the fine arts course at Curtin University, Western Australia. It was wall to wall trees; oil paintings, drawings and pastels that honed in unsentimentally on the bits that, for him, expressed the scarred and burnt nature of the Australian landscape. Beauty was in the texture, subdued colours and the raw detail. With these life-like depictions of trees began a fascination with illusion: like magic, paint could be transformed into 'bark'. And so too, 'paint' could be made from the very landscape itself.
Gathering and using natural materials such as earth, ash, charcoal and tree resins made a direct connection to the subject. In recent years, he has combined these with materials and surfaces that are decidedly inorganic and synthetic. Fake wood vinyl made its ironic appearance in engraved wall-mounted structures that took a step into the 3D world of sculpture: curved planes and corner-spanning works appeared flat, while flat planes seemed to protrude. All was not what it appeared, picture planes existed in the mind of the viewer, yet the trickery was always revealed.
Engraving is a new technique that Windberg has explored since his time spent in Karratha on the remote coast of North Western Australia where he was exposed to the ancient petroglyphs of the Burrup Peninsula. In developing his own techniques he is also referencing European engraving styles and pertinently, given the subject of human impact on the landscape and disappearing vegetation, the art of the woodcut.
Tony Windberg lives and works in the South West region of Western Australia. He is married with 3 children. Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1966, he graduated from Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts, major: Painting).
He has won numerous art awards, including the City of Perth Art Award in both 1999 and 2001.He has held several solo exhibitions and has been selected to exhibit in significant state and national group exhibitions, including the Fleurieu Biennale Art Prize, the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, the Heysen Prize for Australian Landscape and The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize.
He is represented widely in public, corporate and private art collections.
Tony is represented by Art Collective WA
teaching:
Tony began teaching over 2 decades ago while living in Perth, Western Australia. Invitations to demonstrate for numerous art groups and societies led to him running workshops and regular classes, starting at the Atwell Art Centre during the 1990s.
He taught life drawing, sketching and other art classes with University of WA Extension from 1996 to 2002. He has also been a regular tutor at the Albany Summer School since 1994.
While based in the north-west WA town of Karratha, he ran classes at the Karratha Arts and Learning Centre. In addition, he was invited by PilbaraTafe to teach indigenous artists working out of the historic pearling town of Cossack. He facilitated the Oxides Project, a workshop for Bujee Nhoorr Pu indigenous artists with support from the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi Foundation. This 2005 project explored the use of earth pigments with contemporary art materials.
From 2006, after moving to the south-west of WA, he began lecturing in Pemberton, Northcliffe, Nannup and Manjimup, for Western Australia's South Regional TAFE.
He holds workshops in the southwest and Perth and runs regular classes in Pemberton and Northcliffe, South West WA.
