CV
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
Born: Wollongong, Australia 1992
EDUCATION
2015 - BCA University of Wollongong
2012 - Diploma of Fine Art, West Wollongong TAFE
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 - Forthcoming March: Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia 2024 - Kakurega, Laid Bug, Tokyo, Japan 2024 - Daily Dilemmas, Edwina Corlette, Brisbane 2023 - Wandering Where, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Sydney 2023 - Downshifter, Egg and Dart Gallery, Wollongong
2022 - Measured Moments, Laid Bug, Tokyo, Japan
2022 - Lost Between, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane 2021- Sweet Misgivings, Egg and Dart Gallery, Thirroul
2020 - Heretofore, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2019 - Stranger Avenue, Egg and Dart Gallery, Thirroul
2019 - A Different Road Home, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane 2017 - Umbra, Egg & Dart, Thirroul
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2023 - Lateral Landscapes, Museum of Art and Culture, Lake Macquarie 2023 - Spring 1883, Hotel Windsor, Melbourne
2023 - Vision Splendid, Hazelhurst Art Centre, Gymea
2022 - Resistance, Beams, Harajuku, Japan 2022 - Substratum, Woollahra Gallery at Readleaf, Sydney 2021 - Collected: Sydney Living Museums Acquisitions, Sydney Museum, Sydney 2021 - Incognito (Studio A), Verona Studio, Sydney
2021 - 93 Bourke & Friends, Ninety Three Bourke ARI, Sydney 2021 - Slippin Matters, Tsutaya Books, Tokyo, Japan 2020 - One Off, Canteen ARI, Sydney
2020 - Sydney Contemporary Online, Sydney 2020 - Holding Pattern, Egg & Dart, Thirroul 2020 - The Home, Hazelhurst Art Centre, Gymea 2019 - A Place to Call Home, Wollongong Regional Art Gallery, Wollongong 2019 - The New Gallery Show, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane
2019 - Grown Ocean, School of Arts, Clifton
2019 - Scorcher, Egg and Dart, Thirroul 2018 - Life in Working Art, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Gymea 2018 - On the Aussie Telly, Ambush Art Gallery, Sydney
2018 - Here + Now, Wollongong Regional Art Gallery, Wollongong 2018 - The Platform 10, Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane 2018 - The Castle, Egg and Dart Thirroul 2017 - Surf Cassette, Gladstone St Warehouse, Newtown, Sydney
2017 - Home Wrecker, ASW, Newcastle
2016 - On Excursion, Casula Powerhouse, Casula
2016 - Vital Signs, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Gymea
2016 - Locals Lonely, Egg and Dart, Thirroul
RESIDENCIES / PUBLIC PROJECTS
2024 - Gang Gang Residency, Yuin Country (Cuttagee NSW)
2023 - The Bank Residency, Port Kembla
2021 - Artist in Residency, Trinity Grammar School, Sydney
2021 - Rose Seidler House 70th Anniversary Commission, Museums of History New South Wales 2020 - Farmer & The Owl ‘Family Values’ Album art
2019 - Yours And Owls Festival, Main Stage Design, Wollongong
2017 - Art Box Project, Shibuya, Tokyo
COLLECTIONS
White Rabbit Collection
Macquarie Group
Museums of History New South Wales (formerly Sydney Living Museums)
Wollongong Art Gallery University of Wollongong
GRANTS/PRIZES
2023 - Create NSW, Visual Arts Commissioning Grant recipient
2024 - Wynne Prize, AGNSW Sydney, NSW (finalist) 2024- Mosman Art Prize, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney NSW (finalist). 2024 - Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery, Caloundra QLD (finalist) 2024 - Waverley Art Prize, Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney NSW (Highly Commended) 2024 - The Blake Prize, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Casula, NSW (finalist) 2023 - Kings School Art Prize (finalist)
2022 - Salon De Refusés, S.H Ervin Gallery Sydney, NSW (Wynne finalist)
2022 - Sulman Prize, AGNSW Sydney, NSW (finalist)
2022 - Hazelhurst Works on Paper Prize, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Gymea (finalist) 2021 - Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery, Caloundra QLD (finalist) 2020 - Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship, Brett Whiteley Studio, Sydney NSW (finalist) 2019 - Wynne Prize, AGNSW Sydney, NSW (finalist)
2019 - Gosford Art Prize, Gosford Regional Gallery, Gosford NSW (finalist)
2019 - Still: National Still Life Award, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery NSW (finalist)
2016 - Gosford Art Prize, Gosford Regional Gallery, Gosford NSW (finalist)
2015 - Lloyd Rees Memorial Art Prize, Lane Cove (finalist)
PUBLICATIONS / MEDIA
2023 - Qantas Travel Insider Magazine, Creative Process, December Issue 2023 - Art Collector Magazine, Sydney Contemporary Art Fair Edition 2022 - Episode 10, ABC Artworks, ABC 2021 - Unlocked, The Sydney Living Museum Gazette, Autumn Edition, 70 Years of Rose Seidler House
2021 - Issue 57, Artist Profile Magazine
Christopher Zanko is an artist based in the Illawarra/Dharawal region of the New South Wales south coast. Taking great inspiration from the architecture, culture and history of his hometown and influenced heavily by Japanese woodblock carving and wood-relief printing, Zanko has configured a practice using these principles, but has importantly brought it to life through his own lens and lived experience. This idea of perspective, finding importance in the process and looking within it to find the elements that give emphasis to his own unique perspective is evident throughout Chris’ vast body of work and in evolving choice of subject matter.
By directing his gaze to look back at the communities that populated the vast stretch down the coast to Wollongong and more broadly the experience of outer suburbs and regional cities of Australia, Zanko acknowledges what came before. The mid-twentieth century houses that are emblematic of these suburbs were initially built en masse to facilitate the needs of their communities and were often made according to generic cookie-cutter plans, making it common to see the same house repeated in a suburb many times over. Zanko looks at and seeks out the individualism amongst the masses, the elements that made these houses into homes. This is where we see the emergence of tyre swans, water features, specialty terrazzo porches and those suburban elements that trigger familiarity and the reassurance of the known.
Zanko’s distinct works take time, there are many layers and stages, and the imprint of the hand is unmistakably felt across the entire surface of a finished artwork. In the tradition of Japanese woodblock carving, Zanko chisels and gouges his subjects in an act of perpetuity and place, both a necessary step in Zanko’s medium as well as an undertaking that works conceptually with the artist’s practice. Each work begins with a colour study of Chris’ chosen subject, whether it be a classic redbrick home, study of a terracotta pot and its occupant or a perfectly manicured boxwood hedge.
Through these deeply conscious decisions in medium and subject matter, Zanko creates permanence through the action of carving and simultaneously gives these homes and memories an enduring place to survive. Zanko explains, “these are actions that can’t be undone, it’s like writing your name in cement, it feels like forever when you make these marks.” Through this methodology, Chris has been able to build on the tactile language he creates through his translations of images and more recently has been giving yet more weight to his textured surfaces through large-scale, monochromatic manifestations of his works. The homogenisation of colour in these works both emphasises and quietens the subject matter whilst at the same time reveals the meditative labour of medium and represents the passion, thought and dedication. Zanko gives each of these to his craft, as well as to his relationship and perhaps the relationship that others may have to a sense of place in the world, marked by locality, fixtures of time and place and a subconsciously formed, but ever-active cognitive map.
Christopher Zanko graduated with a Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong. He was a finalist in the 2020 Brett Whiteley prize and, significantly, the 2022 Sulman Prize and the 2019 Wynne Prize. In 2023 Chris was a finalist in the Kings School Art Prize, was awarded the Create NSW Visual Arts Commissioning Grant and presented a solo exhibition at Sydney Contemporary with The Egg & Dart. In 2020 he was part of a commissioning exhibition organised by Hazelhurst Arts Centre, “The Home”, that celebrated art deco residential design in Australia. Christopher has been a feature artist in both Art Collector and Artist Profile magazines as well as on the ABC’s ABC Artworks program. Another great opportunity has been the recent 70th anniversary commission to paint Rose Seidler House for the Museums of History New South Wales Collection. Zanko’s work can also be found in the White Rabbit Collection along with; Macquarie Group, Museums of History New South Wales, Wollongong Art Gallery and University of Wollongong collections.