Christopher Pease is a Minang/Wardandi/Balardung Noongar man from Western Australia. He was born in Perth in 1969. His mother, Sandra Hill, and his brother Ben Pushman are also visual artists. Pease studied art at the Perth Technical College. His works of oil on canvas and Balga (grass tree) resin and ochres on canvas are informed by his family histories and the colonial history of Western Australia. His sources are generally from family stories, historical documents and photographs as well as the photographs of well known 19th and 20th century Irish immigrant journalist Daisy Bates. The 'traditional’ media of resin and ochre are gathered from his own 'country’ in southern Western Australia.
Pease has been included in a number of key group exhibitions including 'South west central: Indigenous art from south Western Australia, 1833-2002’ at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (2003), 'Works from the collection’, John Curtin Art Gallery (2004) and 'Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial’, at the National Gallery of Australia (2007 and touring nationally and internationally until 2009). In 2002 he exhibited alongside his mother and brother in a group/family show at Goddard de Fiddes Gallery in Perth where in 2000, 2003 and 2005 he has staged solo exhibitions.
In 2006 Pease was commissioned by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to participate in an Aboriginal Print Portfolio commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Dutch East India Company owned vessel, Duyfken (Little Dove), which landed on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula in 1606. The other artists included in this portfolio were Laurel Nannup, Karen Casey, Allan Mansell, Dulamari (Djalinda Yunupingu), Duwarrwarr Marika, Janice Murray, Garry Namponan, Leonie Pootchemunka and Pedro Wonaeamirri.
Pease was a finalist in the 19th and 22nd Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (2002, 2005) and in June 2009 he was announced as one of fifteen finalist artists in the 2009 WA Indigenous Art Awards.
Pease has works in the collections of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, BHP Billiton Art Collection, the Holmes a Court Collection, the Kerry Stokes/Australian Capital Equity Collection, Murdoch University, John Curtin University of Technology, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, Wesfarmers Australia and the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Ultrect, Netherlands.
Pease lives and works in Perth, Western Australia.
- Writers:
- Allas, Tess
- Date written:
- 2009
- Last updated:
- 2011
