Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/michael-garbutt

Birth Place

Salford, UK

Biography

Michael Garbutt is an artist, designer, lecturer, television director and presenter, whose practice ranges from small paintings to larger urban and landscape projects, as well as time based artworks in sound and video. He was born in Salford, United Kingdom, in 1955. After leaving school, Garbutt studied English literature at the University of Durham, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), in 1976. In 1988 he came to Australia to study linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney. He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Linguistics in 1990. In 1997, Garbutt received his Ph.D. He undertook yet more study, completing a Bachelor in Science Architecture at the University of Sydney in 2001. In 2002, Garbutt took up a lecturing position in the School of Design Studies, College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. He also developed a series of programs on art and architectural history, entitled 'Garbutt’s Way’, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as well as produced multi-platform interactive programs for teaching and learning in the health sector. Garbutt’s research in environmental psychology has examined spatial relationships between people and their surroundings. He describes himself as a “creative”, who makes use of two-dimensional and three-dimensional techniques whether employing documentary or abstract approaches to his work (pers. comm.). Descended from Lithuanian Jews who migrated to England in the late nineteenth century, a seminal influence on his work has been the cultural traditions of East European Jewry and the shadow of the Holocaust. Garbutt is interested in world cultures, speaks Italian and French, and understands Hebrew and Spanish. Whilst at university he was inspired by the ideas of French philosophers, especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his ideas on perception through the senses in understanding and engaging with the world. Furthermore, Garbutt was also inspired by Jane Jacob’s work The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1972), which critiqued modernist planning policies that destroyed many existing inner-city communities. Much of Garbutt’s art is conceptual in the sense that his paintings and drawings are exploratory of ideas and not made for public exhibition. He regards his work as operating within a liminal space between the physical and the psychological worlds that he explores with body, mind, and eye (pers. comm.). For instance, 'Rubbing America’ , (1996-99), was a series of rubbings of historic building surfaces, such as Emily Dickinson’s House in Amherst and the Custom House in Salem, both in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. These rubbings are then left in situ to degrade. They are not photographed because the act of rubbing is itself the point of the work. Garbutt believes this is probably his most radical contribution to contemporary drawing and mark making. In order to focus on the psychological space between people and their surroundings, he makes use of various fields including painting, drawing, urban design, documentation and architecture. Keen to use his diverse skills, Garbutt has collaborated with other artists and organisations. He has made documentaries with film director Judy Menczel, and worked on urban design projects with Choi Ropiha and McGregor Coxall. The master plan with Choi Ropiha for Parramatta Road in Sydney won First Prize in the 2001 Parramatta Road International Urban Design Competition. In addition to his studio and conceptual projects, Garbutt has presented and co-directed approximately thirty documentaries. Some have an art historical focus on architecture and art, such as House of the Finnish Gods , In Search of Sacred Spaces and The Temples of Korea , which have been shown on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Others have a more ergonomic design theme and stem from his work as a program developer, writer and presenter for The Aged Care Channel, a satellite television channel providing training and education for staff in aged care facilities. A documentary in this context, for example, may address best practice design of gardens for dementia patients. Whereas his drawings and two-dimensional projects are often conceptual, his film work, according to the artist designer, “exists in a different space where I do allow myself to be commodified” (pers. comm.). Garbutt has also written a number of books, the most significant of which are documentary based, Hear My Story!: What Jews Really Think And Feel (2000, published by Jonathan David Publishers, New York, United States), and SydneyCENTRAL: [can Sydney be more than the Harbour? ] (published in 2001 by SydneyCENTRAL Team, Manly, New South Wales). Garbutt had a number of solo exhibitions including 'Super Tourettism: a study of postmodern shape shifting in urban spaces’ (1984) at the British Institute Library, Florence, Italy and 'White Stripe, Yellow Stripe’ (November 1999-January 2000) at Jeongshil Galleries, Busan, South Korea comprised of paintings, road markings, natural etchings and scrapings. In September 2010 Garbutt was a Finalist in the Marrickville Contemporary Art Prize at Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Camperdown, Sydney. His work is also held in private collections, both in Italy and Australia. In 2010 Garbutt was living in Marrickville in the inner west of Sydney. He is married to violinist, Jooyeon Park. Writers: Zhe, Cao MingDe Lorenzo, Catherine Date written: 2010 Last updated: 2010

Born

b. 1955

Summary

Michael Garbutt is an artist, designer and scholar who works in two and three dimensional art as well as time-based projects.

Gender

Male

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed