PETER HENNESSEY

b. 1968, Sydney

Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.

Peter Hennessey was born in 1968 in Sydney, Australia. He completed a Bachelor of Architecture (First Class Honours), RMIT in 1995. Exhibitions and collaborations include My Hell’s Gate, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne (2010); My NSAT-110, Kandada, Tokyo (2007); My Voyager, PICA, Perth (2005); Anne Landa Award, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney (2004); TerrUrbanism, Australia Centre, Manila, The Philippines (with Patricia Piccinini) (1995); De Overkant, Den Haag Sculptuur, The Hague (2007).

Trained as an architect, Hennessey has established an international profile for his physically imposing, conceptually rigorous sculptures. He is inspired by the science of space exploration and comparable technological advances, and scours the Internet and other publicly available information to produce his work. The resulting sculptures are ‘re-enactments’ of objects that allow people to encounter in three-dimensions what they would otherwise only see in reproduction, or on the Web. In recreating these structures, Hennessey explores the ‘space between images and experience’ and expounds on related social, political and economic imperatives.

http://www.peterhennessey.net/

“For the past two years, the art of Peter Hennessey has powerfully examined the media-saturated events and phenomena that have inscribed themselves upon his (and our) memories and dreams. Deploying the most commonplace of materials (plywood, galvanised steel hinge, canvas), Hennessey has produced bold, arresting and intricate sculptures based on subject matter which is familiar, even infamous, but physically inaccessible...“

(excerpt from Space Voyagers and Neonatal Nightmares: an odyssey into the Art of Peter Hennessey by Varga Hosseini, 2006