Biography

Ivan Durrant (b. 1947), painter, sculptor, filmmaker, performance artist and writer, was born in Melbourne. With no formal art training, he held his first exhibition at Torlano Galleries in 1970. He achieved notoriety in 1975 by presenting the carcass of a cow at the National Gallery of Victoria. By the mid-1970s his work had evolved from the deliberately naïve approach of this first show to a technically refined photorealist style of painting. Durrant often concentrates on a theme, producing series of paintings thoroughly exploring a subject. These have included movie star portraits, 'propaganda' images of his wife and daughter, a horse racing series and paintings of wool sheds. He has held solo exhibitions for five decades and his work is represented in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia and most state galleries.