Gareth Sansom

Who is Gareth Sansom?

Gareth Sansom is an Australian artist, painter, printmaker and collagist and winner of the 2008 John McCaughey Memorial Prize of $100,000.

Best known for introducing new themes and subject-matter into Australian art and being one of the first Australian artists to be influenced by Pop art, particularly British Pop artists like Peter Blake, Allen Jones, Derek Boshier, Joe Tilson and the formal strategies of the post-modernist R. B. Kitaj. Another major Influence was and remains the British painter Francis Bacon. He was an associate of Brett Whiteley and there was a likely mutual influence. Sansom has had a distinct influence on subsequent Australian art, paving the way for later notable artists such as Juan Davila and Howard Arkley. His work is represented by the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Mertz Collection. His paintings are eclectic, studded with allusions both historical, cultural and personal. There is something almost diaristic about his work, but its presentation is anything but linear and logical.