Jonny Niesche

Jonny Niesche, born in Sydney in 1972, studied at the Sydney College of the Arts under Mikala Dywer and Heimo Zobernig at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Based on the visual frame of reference of the glam rock era and its cosmetics-driven counterculture, Niesche creates paintings, sculptures and installations that deal intensively with the perception of colour, surface and spatiality. 

The works make use of a variety of techniques and materials, including metal frames, transparent fabric, digital colour selection and sublimation printing - a process in which pigments are transferred by heat. Niesche's paintings are neither opaque nor transparent, but appear to float and pulsate, transforming from solid images into dynamic events.

Niesche's works are reminiscent of minimalist sculptors such as Anne Truitt and Donald Judd. There are also similarities with the Zero artists of the post-war period, who incorporated movement and light into the expanded possibilities of painting. In this way, Niesche experiments with the effects of interactivity and movement on perception and involves the viewer spatially and physically in the act of seeing.

Jonny Niesche has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, notably at Zeller van Almsick in Vienna, 1301PE and 1301SW in Los Angeles and Sydney, Starkwhite in Auckland, and most recently at Fundacio La Nave Salinas in Ibiza. Niesche has participated in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. His works can be found in the most important Australian collections, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the GOMA Gallery of Modern art in Queensland and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Also in numerous large private collections in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australia. At the beginning of 2024, his works can be seen side by side with those of Brigitte Kowanz in Amsterdam.