Gian Manik’s approach to painting is informed by an irreverence for genre and resistance to stylistic categorisation. Driven by a compulsion to paint, Manik’s artworks move dexterously between the polarities of figuration and abstraction, often sprawling into the modalities of fashion and music. Within Manik’s layered surfaces, references from the fabric of his daily life and familial history converge with gestural passages to form a chaotic palimpsest of representation and memory. Nostalgic, melancholic and facetious, Manik’s paintings vibrate with emotional and compositional intensity.

Manik currently lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. He has a Masters in Fine Art from Monash University, Melbourne, and a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from Curtin University, Perth.

Recent solo exhibitions include You own the school, embrace your responsibility for its legacy, Gertrude Glasshouse, Melbourne, 2024; Don Quixote, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2023; Ralph McLean, Richmond Town Hall, Melbourne, 2023; Field works, Spring1883, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2022; Marouflage, Bus Projects, Melbourne 2021; Authentic Memories Generate Real Human Responses, Sutton Gallery Online, Melbourne 2019; Paintings, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2018; National Trust, Courthouse Gallery, Port Headland, 2018; Internal Audit, The Honeymoon Suite, Melbourne, 2018; Hi- Vis and Balcony and Sheepskin and Pilbara, Artereal, Sydney, 2017 and What is your name, It’s a Symbol, Don’t Talk, FORM, Perth, 2017.

Recent group exhibitions include Bayside Painting Prize, Bayside Gallery, Melbourne, 2024; Gertrude Studios 2023, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2023; The Ramsay Art Prize 2023, Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), Melbourne, 2023; Like a Wheel That Turns: The 2022 Macfarlane Commissions, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2022; Between the two, Caves, Melbourne, 2020; 5th/6th final Melbourne Artist Facilitated Biennale, Hero Building, Melbourne, 2019; The drawing is just not there, Westspace, Melbourne, 2018; Rough, Raw and Magic in Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2017; All or Nothing, D&K Fashion launch, RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, 2017; Portrait Project, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 2017; and Painting, More Painting, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016.

Manik was recently an Artist In Residence at Bundanon, New South Wales. He is also the recipient of a 2022 McFarlane Commission from the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art.