Easton Dunne is an artist, artsworker and arts educator based in Central Queensland on Darumbal Country. Their work explores queer identity work and experiences in rural and regional contexts through an autobiographical lens.
Dunne’s major solo exhibition, Welcome to Paradise, will open at Rockhampton Museum of Art in May 2023. Their solo exhibition, Main Drag, was shown at Metro Arts in Meanjin/Brisbane during March 2023 and will also be shown at First Draft in Sydney on Gadigal Land in June. During 2022 they were invited to participate in Mighty Real, a group exhibition of work by LGBTQIAP+ artists curated by Todd Fuller, held at M. Contemporary in Sydney as part of Clifford Chance and Glamazon Pride Exhibition.
Dunne’s 2021 solo exhibition, Drawn Together, was shown at both the Queensland College of Art’s Project Gallery and GALA Gallery. Informed by Rural Queer Studies, the work deployed drawing and video to create autobiographical narratives that offered the artist’s perspective on life as a queer person in regional and rural Central Queensland. The exhibition aimed to facilitate dialogue and exchange between the artist and metropolitan audiences on how socio-cultural and geographical factors influence diversity in queer identity work and practices, elaborated upon in Dunne’s accompanying essay and an exhibition review by Clare O’Callaghan.
A digital adaptation of the work in Drawn Together was curated into OuterSpace ARI’s 2021 exhibition, Location, Location, Location, where the work was projected onto the facade of the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Art each night for two weeks. Other achievements include being selected as an illustrator for the State Library of Queensland’s First Five Forever: Stories for Little Queenslanders children’s book project in 2020; a solo exhibition at Rockhampton Art Gallery in 2019, House; and winning the 2019 Bayton Award for Central Queensland and the 2018 Queensland Regional Art Awards Holding Redlich Art For Life Award.
Dunne has exhibited nationally through selection for prizes including the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, Marie Ellis Drawing Award, and the Lyn McCrea Drawing Prize. Their work has been curated into exhibitions such as Utopia Tropicae: Spirit of The North at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in 2018, and has been acquired by institutions such as Rockhampton Museum of Art, Queensland College of Art Print Collection, Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum Collection and Central Queensland University Collection.
Dunne completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Queensland College of Art in 2012 and a Postgraduate Diploma of Education at Queensland University of Technology in 2014. They are passionate about high quality arts and learning experiences for people in rural and regional areas and have worked as a secondary visual art teacher, an artist-in-residence in kindergartens and schools, and facilitated workshops for learners of all ages around Queensland.
Image: Easton Dunne standing in the entrance to Gallery 2 at Metro Arts in Meanjin/Brisbane, with their solo exhibition, Main Drag.
