Artspace

Heath Franco in his Artspace Studio, 2018. Photo: Jessica Maurer

Heath Franco, 2016. Photo: George Voulgaropoulos, commissioned by Parramatta City Council

About Heath Franco

Heath Franco’s practice largely takes the form of video, although his process of production and exhibition is also concerned with photography, performance, costume, sound, digital media and installation. He creates screen-based works that are structured with respect to flow and rhythm rather than traditional plot narrative and that in turn attract and repulse through a mix of curious aesthetic, catchy jingles and absurd, at times grotesque, performances.

Repetition is a consistent feature of Franco’s works produced in recent years, along with a psychotropic sensibility and presence as sole performer within the works. His practice is conceptually informed by explorations into Western popular culture and desires, domesticity and notions of ‘home’, the chaos of existence, and contemplations on the nature and possibilities of space-time.

Heath Franco’s recent solo exhibitions include ALTERLAND, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, and HOME AGAIN, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. Institutional group exhibitions include The National 2017: New Australian Art, Carriageworks; Red Green Blue: A History of Australian Video Art Griffith University Art Gallery; Antiques Roadshow, Gertrude Contemporary; NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), Artspace, Sydney; Patternation, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery; DEADPAN, Goulburn Regional Gallery; Art as a Verb, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne and Artspace, Sydney; Sideshow, UTS Gallery, Sydney; Impact, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; and Primavera 2013, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Franco was the recipient of the Arts NSW 2015 Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), Fishers Ghost 2014 Contemporary Art Award and 2012 Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, and the. Franco’s video works have been screened at ACMI, Melbourne, GOMA, Brisbane, Sydney Contemporary, Art Stage Singapore, and Art Fair Tokyo. Franco’s works are held in the public collections of Artbank, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Griffith University Art Gallery.