ELVIS RICHARDSON
BORN 1965
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES
LIVES MELBOURNE, VICTORIA
She named herself Elvis and then set out to find out who Elvis Richardson could be. Hers is a lived art practice that moves hand-in-hand with the construction of an identity. Richardson playfully mixes popular culture and found imagery into irreverent installations.
Elvis Richardson doesn’t claim a signature style; she moves from one project to the next with restless intelligence. If her works begin to line up in a tidy sequential narrative, her instinct for nonconformity forces her to rebel. Resistance also takes the form of feminist activism: The CoUNTess —a regal form of Elvis—keeps watch over the visual arts industry by tallying up its gender representation. Like her studio works, The CoUNTess Report involves the act of collecting, questioning who is identified as an artist, and examining the mechanics of recognitio
Elvis Richardson, 2018
terrazzo concrete
Like her earlier trophy works, this signed slab of terrazzo references an economy of recognition. Richardson reflects on the structures of the arts industry, where developing a name for oneself is central to the perpetuation of a career. Artists’ names become brands that, once recognised, receive further notoriety and funding. Grants, exhibitions and prizes help mark out those more worthy of investment. In putting her name assertively forward, Richardson is both critical of and complicit in arts institutional practices, and brings to the fore the dilemma faced by many activist artists.