Hayden Fowler’s work looks at the conflicted and contradictory relationships between the human and natural worlds. His work asks if such a division exists beyond a manifestation of social anxieties and proposes an exploration of these notions. Early installations such as Monoculture and Platform [both 2001] used various elements including wooden scaffolds, photography, artificial grass and, in the case of Monoculture, a stuffed and mounted bird. Although these installations did not use video technology they nonetheless suggested a filmic sensibility. It was a natural progression then for Fowler to use a bank of TV monitors playing digital DVD images of birds for his installation Recalling Lost Utopia [2002]. Radically reducing his process and concentrating on video only, Fowler’s Biosphere 1A [2004] was an installation of five monitors with images of birds similar to those in Recalling Lost Utopia.
Fowler’s next works - White Cock and White Australia [both 2005] - were a significant shift in the artist’s practice. White Cock is a mostly static shot of a rooster. As the shot changes, however, each transition is accompanied by electronic buzzing noises. The artist used a similar technique in White Australia to include a coded audio message to accompany shots of rats entering and exiting a small stage set. Goat Odyssey [2006] is a more ambitious expansion of these techniques using two goats wandering through a colourful theatrical stage set that suggests Orientalism and science fiction.
Where Goat Odyssey explored fascination and alienation, Hunger [2007] delves into a much bleaker world. A two screen work, Hunger shows a lamb on a black stage set suckling from a teat in a wall. White milk spatters on the black floor. Conjuring the dead worlds of Edweard Muybridge’s stage sets and Joel Peter Witkin’s macabre photographs, Fowler’s video is all the more powerful for its low key narrative and an upsettingly ambiguous relationship between maker, subject and audience.
For Second Nature [2008] Fowler restated many of his thematic concerns, but on a much larger scale. With a run time of some 40 minutes, Second Nature uses the spaces of white stage sets to construct an ambiguous narrative that explores the interconnectedness of humans and animals. Like his earlier work, the video unfolds through a series of slowly changing tableau while the central thematic idea is explored through the visual metaphors of air conditioning ducts connecting one space to the next. Recalling the work of David Lynch, Second Nature is Fowler’s most explicit experiment in cinematic narrative.
2011 The Long Forgetting: Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo, Australia.
2008 Call of the Wild: Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle, Australia.
Second Nature: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia.
2007 Video Projects: Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Call of the Wild: Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia.
Call of the Wild: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia.
2006 AS SEEN ON TV: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia.
2005 White Australia: Elastic residence, London, United Kingdom.
Product Placement: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia.
2003 Postcards from Utopia: UNSW roundhouse, Sydney, Australia.
2002 Progress in Harmony: Space 3, Sydney, Australia.
2012 The Visitor: Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn NY, US.
The Secret Cabinet: Antje Oklesund, Berlin, Germany.
2011 The Blake Prize (highly commended): National Art School Gallery, Sydney Australia.
Awfully Wonderful: Performance Space, Sydney, Australia.
After Glow: Monash Gallery Of Art, Melbourne, Australia.
The Animal Gaze: Sheffield Institute of the Arts Gallery, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
2010 In Context: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia.
Souvenirs from Earth: French TV Video Art broadcast, www.souvenirsfromearth.tv
Cartography of Myth: Ficken 3000, Berlin, Germany.
LoveArt: Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, Australia.
Understory: Devonport Regional Gallery, Devonport, Australia.
Imagining The Everyday: Australian Centre for Photography at The Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China.
2009 RBS Emerging Artist Award exhibition, RBS Towers, Sydney, Australia.
Bowness Photography Prize exhibition, Monash Gallery Of Art, Melbourne, Australia.
Tier Perspektiven: Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin Germany.
Colliding Worlds: Samstag Museum, Adelaide, Australia.
The Animal Gaze: London Metropolitan University, London, United Kingdom.
The Animal Gaze: Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth, United Kingdom.
2008 In Captivity: Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo, Australia.
2007 Eye to Eye: Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo, Australia.
Windows: Auckland Festival, Auckland, New Zealand.
2006 December Group: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia.
Pet Project: Australian Centre for Photography, Span Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.
Pet Project: Australian Centre for Photography Sydney Australia.
Art and About: City of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Flaming Youth: Orange Regional Gallery, Orange, Australia.
Sowing Seeds: Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo, Australia.
White Australia: Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubbo, Australia.
The Idea of the Animal: RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.
2005 Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship exhibition: Artspace, Sydney, Australia.
Space to Place: Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Australia.
GBK@SPAN: Span Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.
Selekta: West Space, Melbourne, Australia.
Sunshine Policy: Blue Oyster Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand.
2004 Beautiful Garbage: Cheongju Art Centre, Cheongju, South Korea, Australia.
Australian Artists: Pici Gallery, Seoul. South Korea.
The December Group: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, Australia.
2003 Tale-chaser: Gallery 4A, Asia-Australia Arts Centre, Sydney, Australia.
Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship exhibition: Artspace, Sydney, Australia.
2002 In the Flesh: First Draft Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
Expo: Imperial Slacks, Sydney, Australia.
2001 Mint: COFA, Sydney, Australia.
Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship exhibition: Artspace, Sydney, Australia.
Fusion: Melbourne Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia.
Eat My Shorts: Carnivale Festival, Performance Space, Sydney, Australia.
2000 Downwardly Mobile: Imperial Slacks, Sydney, Australia.
Furr: kudos Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
2010 Dr Troy Ruffels, Understory, (essay for exhibition catalogue), Devonport Regional Gallery, Tasmania, Australia 2010.
Anna Davis, MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context, (essay for exhibition Catalogue), Museum Of Contemporary Art, Sydney Australia, 2010, pp 4-9, 22-23.
Andrew Frost, The colour of nothing: contemporary video art, science fiction and the Post modern sublime, research essay, 2010.
2008 Jasmin Stephens, Call of the Wild, Hayden Fowler catalogue essay, Gallery Barry Keldoulis, 2008.
Jo Bosben (ed), The Resurrection, COFA art and design, issue 20, Summer 2008.
Louise Martin-Chew, Alternative Realities, Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship catalogue, 2008.
2007 Gary Carsley, Hayden Fowler (interview), They Shoot Homos Don’t They? no. 0004, pp 94-97.
Barbara Dover, Eye to Eye (exhibition catalogue), Dubbo Regional Gallery, 2007.
Peter Hill, Unsettled Boundaries, Photofile, no. 79, summer 2007, pp. 36-39.
Joanna Hunkin, Performer marked man in name of art, The New Zealand Herald, March 15, 2007, p. 3.
Elton John (ed); Fashion and Frame: Elton’s Sydney Gallery, Time Out – Sydney, Issue 8, December 12, 2007.
2006 Andrew Frost, White Faced Heron in Repose, Hayden Fowler catalogue essay, Gallery Barry Keldoulis, 2006.
Ali Bramwell, Artist Run Initiatives, Artlink, v. 26, n. 2, June 2006, pp. 68-69.
Rosalie Higson, Living with animal magnetism, The Australian, December 4, 2006, p.18.
Robert McFarlane, Companion Pieces, Sydney Morning Herald, December 20, 2006, p.22.
Gillian Serisier, Video Art - The Australian Art Market Report, n. 19, Autumn, 2006, pp.26-27
2005 Dominique Angeloro, Chicken run, Sydney Morning Herald – Metro, April 8, 2005.
Dominique Angeloro and Jesse Garron, Hayden Fowler – Flights of fancy, Lino magazine, n.10, 2005, pp. 106-107. Suzanne Davis (ed), Hayden Fowler, The Idea of the Animal (exhibition catalogue).
James Hancock (ed), Progress in Harmony, Space3 Gallery, 2005, pp. 92-93.
2003 Dominique Angeloro, Talechaser, Sydney Morning Herald – Metro, August 8, 2003.
Tim Dick, Postcards, Sydney Morning Herald - Metro, August 18, 2003.
Mary O’Malley, Postcards from Utopia, Uniken, August 2003.
Boris Patoka, Is There An Artist in the (Block)House?, Blitz Magazine, 29 July.
Millie Ross, Supernatural Memoirs of a Lost Land, Lilac Menace, March 2003.
2002 Jo Bosben, Hayden Fowler, COFA UNSW Newsletter, April 2002.
Lenny Ann Low, Expo 2002 , Sydney Morning Herald – Metropolitan, March 2, 2002.
2001 Peter Hill, The Sound of 28 Artist’s Clamouring to be Heard, Sydney Morning Herald – Metro, April 18 2001, p.16.
