This new suite of paintings was developed specifically for a solo presentation of the artist’s work as part of this year’s edition of Spring 1883 at the Hotel Windsor. For this series, Manik has stitched together personal memories with imagery we might expect to find in a generic hotel environment, alongside scenarios depicting transient moments that often occur within them.

Manik’s referential language maintains a fundamental connection to derided or “low-brow” sources from popular and visual culture such as graffiti, google image searches or YouTube clips. In this body of work, the artist deploys the formulaic tropes of hotel art with artistic intentionality, challenging conventional ideas of authenticity, circulation, and so-called high/low modes of production.

Selected solo exhibitions:

Paintings, Sutton Gallery, 2019 , National Trust, Courthouse Gallery, Port Headland, 2018; Internal Audit, The Honeymoon Suite, Melbourne, 2018; Ventilation and Natural Light, Artereal, Sydney, 2015; First Outside, Inside Last, Caves, Melbourne, 2015; Foils Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2014, Big Recorder, ALASKA Projects, Sydney, 2013.

Selected group exhibitions:

The drawing is just not there, Westspace, Melbourne, 2018; Painting, More Painting, ACCA, Melbourne; 2016, Farewell to Function, Gian Manik and Koji Ryui, Twenty Thirty Seven, Sydney, 2015; Y3K Biennale,  Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 2014; Fresh Paint, Sutton Project Space, Melbourne, 2012.