Name: Jill Orr
Address: AU

Jill Orr has delighted, shocked and moved audiences through her performance installations which she has presented in cities such as Paris, Beijing, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Antwerp New York, Toronto, Quebec City, Graz, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane from the late nineteen seventies to now.

Orr’s work centres on issues of the psycho- social and environmental where she draws on land and identities as they are shaped in, on and with the environment be it country or urban locales.

Orr’s early iconic work Bleeding Trees has led to commissions such as Marriage of the Bride to Art, Raising the Spirits, Exhume the Grave, Hunger, The Myer Windows, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Goya and Ash, to name only a few works which have contributed to the contemporary cultural landscape. Orr grapples with the balance and discord that exists at the heart of relations between the human spirit, art and nature.

In 2004 Jill Orr created From the Sea about the wild shipwreck coastline of Warrnambool. This panoramic video installation was in created in collaboration with the Gunditmara Aboriginal Community from Warrnambool.

From the Sea began a body of work that traces overlapping histories of indigenous and non- indigenous relations to place. She has recently completed The Crossing, which was presented for the 2007 & 8 Mildura and Wentworth Festival.

Orr was represented in the inaugural Venice International Performance Art Week in 2012 where she presented The Promised Land to international acclaim. She has since been one of ten international performance artists to present at the Bipolar Performance Art Meeting in Sopot, Poland with the performance Trilogy 1- We create the image together, 2014. Orr has mesmerized audiences with her most recent work, Trilogy 2-Listen for the MAP Festival, Melaka, Malaysia, 2014 and Trilogy 3- To Choose, for the 2015 performance for Performance Presence, Video Time curated by Anne Marsh at the AEAF, Adelaide.

Jill Orr received the Australia Council Fellowship and has created Antipodean Epic which is presented as photographic, video and site specific live performance. It was shown Mildura Palimpsest #10 , 2015 followed by Antipodean Epic- The Quarry for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale, 2016 and later to MIP 3, the Belo Horizonte Biennale, Brazil.

Jill has since created Detritus Springs, Listening, Laundry and revised Dark Night for 2019 Dance Massive Program. In 2021, MUMA ( Monash Gallery of Art commissioned This Tree for Tree Story.

Southern Cross Reclaimed exhibited by This is No Fantasy gallery, Dianne Tanzer and Nicola Stein for Art Basel Online 2022, <https://thisisnofantasy.com/art-fairs/art-basel-online-ovr2021%e2%81%a0/>

The Promised Land Refigured was exhibited as a solo show at Linden New Art Gallery for Photo 24

2025 Orr exhibited Same Place, Different Time at This is No Fantasy.

“Jill Orr is a fiery artist and her work expresses the beauty, power and spiritual depth that is her trade mark.” - Helen Vivian, Catalogue essay Jill Orr, Ash - Independent Curator, Producer and Publisher, Director, Artmoves Inc.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Jill Orr

QUALIFICATIONS

Higher Diploma of Secondary Art and Craft Teaching, Melbourne College of Advanced Education,1975
Masters of Arts in Fine Art, Royal Melbourne University of Technology,1994
PhD, Monash University, Art and Design, 2012.
Senior Lecturer in Visual Art, Performance and Post Gradate supervision at the Arts Academy, Federation University, Ballarat
Represented by THIS IS NO FANTASY is Dianne Tanzer and Nicola Stein, 108- 110 Gertrude St, Fitzroy, Melbourne.

2025	Finalist in the Bowness Prize MAPr
2025	Protest is a Creative Act, Museum of Australian Photography ( MAPh ) curated by Kellie Gellatly and Angela Connor
2025:	Sound Silence and Light, video, Collecting the Future: 50 Years of the Griffith University Art Collection, Griffith University Art Museum
2025	Same Place Different Time, This Is No Fantasy, Gertrude St, Fitzroy
2025	ngurrak-al marram-u / body of the mountain, Curated by Gretel Taylor and Gulsen Ozer
2025	Ecologies Project, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, Mornington Peninsular, Victoria.
2025	This is No Fantasy 2025 This is No Fantasy, Gertrude St, Melbourne
2024	The Promised Land Refigured, Photo24, Linden New Art, St Kilda.
2023	In the Arms of Unconsciousness: Women, Feminism and The Surreal, Hazelhurst Arts Centre, NSW curated by Carrie Kibbler.
2023	Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, 2023, Finalist and Highly Commended.
2023	Ingredients for a Precarious Meal, This is No Fantasy Group Show , May-June 2023.
2023	Performing the Archive in Leisa Shelton’s Archiving the Ephemeral at the Abbotsford Convent with Stelarc and myself.
2022	Beating about the Bush: A New Lens on Australian Impressionism, Art Gallery of Ballarat.
2022	Southern Cross Reclaimed, This is No Fantasy is Dianne Tanzer and Nicola Stein, 108-110 Gertrude St, Fitzroy, Melbourne
2022	Falling & Flight, Southern Western, Mildura Arts Cantre, curated by Gareth Hart and Jane Polkinghorne
2022	Southern Cross Reclaimed, Art Basel online 2022 This is No Fantasy, Dianne Tanzer and Nicola Stein, 108-110 Gertrude St, Fitzroy, Melbourne.
2021	2022 Exhume the Grave, McCubbin and Contemporary Art, Geelong Gallery, curated by Lisa Sullivan
2021	This Tree, Tree Story, Monash Museum of Art, curated and comissioned by Charlotte Day
2020-	2021 Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
2020	Australia: Antipodean Stories at PAC Padiglione d'Art Contemporanea, Milan. Curated by Eugenio Viola.
2019	Dark Night, Dance Massive produced by Dancehouse, Curated by Angela Conquet, at the Abbotsford Convent Magdalen Laundries.
2019	Laundry, Temporal Proximities, curated by Kelli Alred, at the Abbotsford Convent Magdalen Laundries.
2018	Listening, Unconformity Festival Queenstown, Tasmania. Curated by Travis Tiddy.
2018	Chaos and Order: 120 Years of collecting at RMIT, curated by Jon Buckingham, RMIT Melbourne
2018	Dark Night, performance commissioned for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018 opening weekend. Curated by Lara Nicholls.
2017	Antipodean Epic, video installation, InExtremis, Arthouse, Melbourne.
2017	Cracks in the Seams with Christina Simons and the Arts Academy performing Arts Students, for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale
2017	Finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art. Melbourne.
2017	States of Being: the elemental importance of water, curated by Anne Bennett, Hatch Gallery, Ivanhoe
2017	Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990’s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2017	Freshwater, SAM, Shepparton Art Museum, curated by Anne Briers
2017	Photography 130 – Behind the Lens: 130 years of RMIT photography, RMIT Gallery curated by Shane Hulbert.
2017	Red, Green, Blue: A History of Australian Video Art curated by Matthew Perkins, Griffith University Gallery
2016-17	Birds: Flight Paths in Australian Art, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, Victoria
2016	A Wallaby Sat Here Once: Small Acts of Celebration, Curated by Lyndal Jones, Avoca Projects Inc. Watford House, Avoca Victoria.
2016	Utopia du Jour, Manningham Art Gallery,curated by Megan McEvoy, Melbourne
2016	Brazil:Antipodean Epic, performance, curated by Fernando Ribiera, Belo Horizonte, Biennale, Brazil. 2016 The Quarry: Antipodean Epic, performance event for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale curated by Julie Collins, Lorne Victoria.
2016	We Stand Together, We Stand Alone, Jill Orr incollaboration with Third Year Acting Company, Arts Academy, Federation University, Mining Exchange, Ballarat.
2016	Antipodean Epic, photographs and video, Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne.
2016	Laughing Waters Road, : Art Landscape and Memoryin Eltham, Catalogue, & Exhibition of the Nillumbik Shire Artist in Residence Program.
2016	Fleurieu Art Prize. Finalist , Samstag Museum South Australia
2015	Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, National Gallery of Victoria. Melbourne.
2015	Antipodean Epic, live performanceMildura Palimpsest Biennale #10, Mildura.
2015	Mentoring and Key Note Presentation for the Marina Abramovic: In Residence, John Kaldor Public Art Project 30, Pier 2/3, Sydney.
2015	About Trees, Zentrum Paul Klee, curated by Peter Fischer, Bern, Switzerland.
2015	Trilogy, performance & videos forPerformance, Presence, Video Time, curated by Anne Marsh, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.
2015	Mad Women in the Attic,: A Feminist Revisioning of the Archive, Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania
2014	Trilogy site-specific performance for the Melaka Performance and Art Festival, Melaka, Malaysia.
2014	We create the image together II, performance,SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin.
2014	Trilogy: we create the image together I, performance,II Bipolar International Meeting of Women Performance Artists in Sopot, curated by Arti Gowowski, National Gallery of Art , Poland
2013-14	Sea of Dreams: Port Phillip Bay 1915-2013 (Part Two), Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, Victoria.
2013	Blake Religious Art Prize finalist and touring exhibition
2013	Biennal International De Curitiba, Curitiba, Brazil
2013	You Carry it With You, Horsham Regional art Gallery, Horsham.
2013	80s Mixed Tape, National Gallery of Victoria, curated by Max Delaney, Melbourne.
2012	The Promised Land, Venice. The inaugural Venice International Performance Art Week, Venice, Italy
2012	The Promised Land, Melbourne, Jenny Port Gallery hosted by the John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne.
2012	Still Moving Despite the Tide, MAP, The Melaka Visual and Performance Festival Melaka , Creative Director , Tony Yap and Visual Art Director, Anthony Pelchan Melaka, Malaysia.
2012	Space, Place and Recurring History, PhD Exhibition, Faculty Gallery, Monash University Caulfield.
2011	Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters- Goya. Project: Art Gallery of Ballarat Night Projection Window, video,
2011	Between Somewhere and Nowhere, performative photographs, Jenny Port Gallery, Melbourne
2011	Song to the Sea, performance, Lorne Sculpture, Lorne.
2011	Palimsest, Mildura, curated by Helen Vivian, Mildura
2011	Black Cube, White Box: Aspects of Performance in Australian ContemporaryArt,The Arts Centre Gallery, curated by Steven Tonkin, Melbourne.
2011	Artist’s Rooms, Vision a photographic installation, Castelmaine State Festival, curated by Jason Smith and Martin King, Castelmaine.
2011	AfterGlow: Performance Art and Photography, Monash Gallery of Art , curated by Stephen Zagala, Melbourne.
2010	Stormy Weather, National Gallery of Victoria, performance photography, Melbourne. 2010 Vision, photographs from Avoca Primary School, Jenny Port Gallery, Melbourne.
2010	Works From the Wimmera Faith in a Faithless Land, photographsHorsham Regional Art Gallery.
2010	Global Mind Project: an arts & neuroscience collaboration Karen Casey, Stelarc, Domenico D`Clario at Federation Square, Melbourne.
2009	Sustainable Fusion Reactions, Ash Keating, Utako Shindo & Bindi Cole, curated by Jill Orr for the Arts Academy, University of Ballarat.
2009	Sustainable Cubbies with the Avoca Primary School for the Eco- Living Festival, Avoca, directed by Lyndal Jones, Avoca Victoria.
2009	Rituals of Engagement: seeing and believing : Installation, World Environment Day, Ballarat
2009	Faith in a Faithless Land: Photographs Jenny Port Gallery, Melbourne
2008	Heat: Art and Climate Change. RMIT Gallery curated by Suzanne Daviesand Linda Williams, Melbourne.
2008	When You think about Art book launch and exhibition at The Ewing a George Paton Gallery, urated by Helen Vivian, Melbourne.
2008	Southern Cross Reflections, Maroondah Art Gallery, Melbourne
2008	The Crossing photo/ video installation, Mildura Arts Centre, Mildura.
2008	LOOP 2008 Barcelona, video festival, Barcelona, Spain.
2007	Blake Religious Art Prize, touring exhibition, Australia.
2007	A Prayer, performance, Inter- Positions 24hr Art, Darwin Festival, Darwin.
2007	Digging in & Climbing Out, photographs at Carni, Melbourne
2007	The Crossing performance event. Mildura & Wentworth Festival, Mildura.
2006	Robert Jacks Drawing Prize, finalist , Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo.
2006	Land, paintings and works on paper, Gallery 25, Mildura
2005	Howl Festival, performance, video, Generation X Garden, E4th St, Alphabet City, New York
2005	Text Me, photographs, Sherman Galleries, Sydney
2005	Artist in Residence, Redgate Gallery, Beijing
2005	Drawing Dust, Altitude, paintings, Maroondah Art Gallery, Redgate Gallery, Beijing
2004	Ash, performance and paintings, Shepparton and Sale Art Galleries, Victoria.
2004	EveN photographs and video, group show, Mildura Art Gallery, Mildura.
2004	From the Sea, video installation, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Warnambool, Victoria.
2004	Altitude Art, photographs, group, Redgate Gallery, Beijing, Mass Gallery, Melbourne John Batten Gallery, Hong Kong.
2003	The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters– Goya, performance installation, 45 Downstairs, Melbourne, City of Melbourne.
2002	/ 3 The Field, Inaugural Show, National Gallery of Victoria, Ian Potter , Federation Square, Melbourne.
2002	Ash, paintings, drawings, and performance, Mass gallery, Melbourne
2002	Ash, Artist in Residence, Parks Victoria and the Nillumbic Shire, Melbourne.
2002	The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters– Goya, performance installation, Artspace, Sydney.
2002	Geelong Art Prize, painting finalist , Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong, Victoria.
2002	The Fleurieu Art Prize, painting finalist Samstag Museum, South Australia.
2001	/ 2 Digital Ghosts, photographic installation, curated by Tony Scott and Sally Grey, Mass Gallery, Melbourne, Redgate Gallery, Beijing, Tin Sheds, Sydney,
1999	Mud People, paintings, sculpture, performance, Herring Island Melbourne.
1999	Artist in Residence, Cite Des Arts International, Paris
1999	Presence 1, Mass Gallery, Melbourne.
1999	Hunger 2, performance, International Performance Arts Festival, Quebec City, Canada.
1999	Hunger 3, performance, 11a / 7d/ International performance Art Festival, Toronto, Canada.
1999	Telling Tales, Trauma and Memory, Cross Cultural Perspectivesperformance photographs, curated by Jackie Dunn and Jill Bennett, Gallery Neue, Graz, Austria.
1999	Exhume the Grave, commissioned by the Geelong Art Gallery
1998	A Bundle of Papers, works on paper, curated by Tony Scott, John Batten Gallery, Hong Kong,
1998	Telling tales, Trauma & Memory, Cross Cultural Perspectives, photographs and performance, Hunger 1, curated by Jackie Dunn and Jill Bennett, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney.
1997	Myer Windows, performance installation, Melbourne International Festival for the Arts, curated by Maudie Palmer, Melbourne.
1996	Sound Silence and Light, commissioned performance installation, Brisbane Festival for the Arts, IMA, Brisbane.
1996	Women Hold up the Sky, photographs, curator, Roger Butler, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
199	Lunch with the Birds, photographs, The Beach, curator Juliana Engberg, Museum of Modern Art, Heide, Melbourne.
1994	Raising the Spirits, commissioned performance installation for Persona Cognita, curated by Juliana Engberg, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne. 1994 Marriage of the Bride to Art, commissioned performance for Celebrating Women, Drydocks and Slipways,curated by Jane Scott, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1994	25 years of Performance,photo-documentation, curated by Nick Waterlow, Sydney, Perth, Canberra, Melbourne. 1992 Love Songs, second performance season by popular demand, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
1991	Love Songs, performance installation IMA, Brisbane, ACCA, Melbourne, Dissonance, Frames of Reference,Artspace, Sydney
1991	Off the Wall In the Air, A Seventies Selection, performance photographs, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.
1990	Jill Orr, Photo – Documentation from 1978 – 1989, photographs and performance, The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Geelong Art Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Mildura Art Gallery, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Contemporary Art Space, Canberra.
1989	Paintings, solo show, DC Art, Sydney
1989	Paintings, solo show, 312 Lennox St, Richmond, Melbourne.
1988	Australian Painters, 312 Lennox St, Richmond, Melbourne.
1987	Paintings, 312 Lennox St, Richmond, Melbourne.
1986	From Field to Figuration, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1985	The Amsterdam Process, Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne
1984	The Amsterdam Process, Performance Space, Sydney
1983	The Digging In & the Climbing Out, performance / Earthwork, Act 3, Canberra.
1982	Paintings, solo, Gallery Theeboom, Amsterdam, Holland.
1982	Headed South, performance, Salon O, Amsterdam and IMA, Belgium.
1982	Meeting the Opposites, performance installation, Eureka, Australian Artists in London, Curators Leon Parissean and Burnese Murphy, Institute of Modern Art , London.
1981	Paintings, Gallery Theeboom, Amsterdam, Holland.
1980	She had Long Golden Hair, performance, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.
1980	Bleeding Trees, performance, Paris Biennalle, Musee D Àrt Modern, Paris.
1980	Do You Speak?Performance, Mixage Festival, Rotterdam ,Utrect, Breda, Amsterdam.
1980	Split- Fragile Relationships, Women at work, Ewing and George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University, Melbourne.
1979	Bleeding Trees, performance, Sydney Biennalle, European Dialogue New South Wales Art Gallery & Power House, Sydney.
1979	Pain Melts and Lunch with the Birds, photo-documentation, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.
1978	Response, performance earthwork, Mildura Triennalle.
1978	Map of Transition, Ewing and George Paton Gallery, Melbourne
1978	Blinding Surface & Inside Jacks Head, Ewing & George Paton Gallery, Melbourne.

Collections

National Gallery of Victoria

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Nillumbic Shire

Methodist Ladies College

Griffith Artworks

Mildura Art Gallery

Geelong Art Gallery

Artbank

RMIT collections

Ian North Collection

Redgate Gallery Beijing

The Grahame Gibson Collection

Maroondah City Council

Monash Gallery of Art

Monash University Art & Design Library Collection

Australian Council of Education Research

City of Yarra

Moreland City Council

Tasco Inland

Private collections: Australia, Holland, England, France, USA, Belgium and China

BOOKS

“Fleshing Dead Animals: Sensory Body Phenomenology in Performance” Peta Tait, Performance and Phenomenology, edited by Maaike Bleeker, Jon Foley Sherman and Eirini Nedelkopoulou, London Routledge 2015, pp: 111-120

Feminist Ecologies: Changing Environments in the Anthropocene, Stephens L. Tait P. and Varney D. (Eds) Palgrave, Macmillan, 2018.

Tait, Peta. 'Performing Ghosts, Emotions, and Sensory Environments.’ In Stevens, L. Tait, P and Varney, Denise (eds), Feminist Ecologies: Changing Environments in the Anthropocene, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 177–192.

Red, Green, Blue: A History of Australian Video Art, curated by Matthew Perkins, Griffith University Art Museum Gordon Darling Foundation, 2017.

Speak To Me, Conversations with the Flinders University Art Collections, Editor, Nic Brown, Flinders University Art Museum, South Australia, 2016.

Kiffy Rubbo Curating the 80’s, Jill Orr pp 121-122, edited by Janine Burke and Helen Hughes, Scribe Melbourne, 2016.

Performance, Ritual, Document, Anne Marsh, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2014.

Art Insight, Third Edition, Lou Chamberlain, Nelson Cenage Learning, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, United States, 2012.

Look: Contemporary Australian Photography since 1980. Anne Marsh, MacMillan Melbourne, Australia, 2010.

Heat: Art, People & Climate Change, Jill Orr, Transdiscourse 1.: Mediated Environments, Editors, Andrea Gleiniger, Angelika Hilbeck, Jill Scott, Springer Wein, New York, 2011.

When You Think About Art: The Ewing and George Paton Gallery 1971 – 2008 . Edited by Helen Vivian published by Macmillan Art Publishing. 2008

Art in Sight: Volume 2, L. Chamberlain, McGraw Hill Co. 2006

The Darkroom Photography and the Theatre of Desire Anne Marsh, Macmillan Art Publishing 2003

At Home in Australia Peter Conrad, National Gallery of Australia in association with Thames and Hudson 2003

Australian Art in the National Gallery of Australiaedited by Anne Gray, produced by the Publications Department of the National Gallery of Australia 2003

Peripheral Vision Contemporary Australian Art 1970-1994Charles Green, Craftsman House 1996

Art in Sight L. Chamberlain, McGraw Hill Book Co. 1996

Art Now Contemporary Art Post 1970D. Williams and C. Simpson, McGraw Hill Book co. 1994

Body and Self: Performance Art in Australia 1969-92 Anne Marsh Oxford University Press 1993

Sight Lines: Women’s Art and Perspectives in Australia, Sandy Kirby, Craftsman House 1992

Anything Goes; Art in Australia 1970-1980Ed. Paul Taylor Art & Text, Melbourne 1984

Experimental Art Foundation, Performance Week, Ed. Noel Sheridan, Experimental Art Foundation Press, Adelaide. 1980

Live Art Australia and America Ed. Jane Kent and Anne Marsh self published Adelaide 1984

New Art Three; Profiles in Contemporary Australian Art, Ed. N. Dury Craftsman House 1989

Field of Vision: A Decade of Women’s Art in the Seventies, Janine Bourke Viking Press, Melbourne 1990

CATALOGUES