Staff Profiles

Education

MFA (1st Class Hons) , The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia , .
BFA , City Art Institute, Sydney College of Advanced Education , .
Post Grad Dip , City Art Institute, Sydney College of Advanced Education , .
DipEd , ITATE, Sydney College of Advanced Education , .

Areas of Expertise

Etching, collagraph, linocut, woodcut, screenprinting, lithography, drawing.

Teaching Areas

Printmaking: all mediums, MFA and Honours supervision.

Current Research Activity

Michael Kempson is Director of Cicada Press, a Custom Printmaking Program at COFA UNSW, focusing on collaborative research in fine art print production with invited artists. Artists involved in 2005 included; James Gleeson, Elisabeth Cummings, Adam Cullen, Suzanne Archer, David Fairbairn, Chris O’D oherty aka Reg Mombassa, Nicholas Harding, Ben Quilty, Roy D. Kennedy, John Peart, Roger Law and Norman Hetherington.

In Michael's individual research he has an extensive background in drawing and print related practice. Projects have included: Wanderings exploring through the notions and traditions of social satire using imagery inspired by Indian miniature painting conventions; Urns investigating the fashions of funereal architecture and monumental masonry ; Mister Funbags in collaboration with Matthew Tome, is a critique of, and an indulgence in, the graphic hyperactivity of packaging language and the marketing conventions of high volume commercial printing and point of sale promotion; Prime Ministers of Australia in collaboration with Matthew Tome, selectively chronicles the political and social climate of some of Australia's Prime Ministers in images and pattern and involve a distinct but subtle use of satire; Martyrology also in collaboration with Matthew Tome, is a series of prints in various media that rework the common symbolic language of the Christian martyrs.

Michael's recent etching work has the working title of Beauty and Banality and explores the graphic potential of urban and suburban metaphor using the paradigm of personal narrative.

Change.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2007, Recent Prints. Impressions on Paper Gallery, Canberra, ACT.

2006, Beauty and Banality. Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

2004, Recent Etchings. John Miller Gallery, Newcastle, NSW.

2003, MNFA@9th Biennial Sydney Art on Paper Fair. Byron Kennedy Hall, Sydney, NSW.

2003, Recent Work. Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

2002, MNFA @ Gallery 101. Gallery 101, Melbourne, VIC.

2001, A Little Respect, collaboration with Matthew Tome. Touring exhibition: Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery; Wagga Wagga City Art Gallery; Dubbo Regional Gallery; Tin Sheds Gallery; Orange Regional Gallery, Toowoomba, QLD; Wagga Wagga, NSW; Dubbo, NSW; Sydney, NSW; Orange, NSW.

2000, Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

1999, Cycles. Burnie Regional Gallery, Burnie, TAS.

1999, Recent Prints. Port Jackson Press, Melbourne, VIC.

Group Exhibitions

2007, Five x Five. Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2006, Sydney Prints, 45 years of the Sydney Printmakers. S. H. Ervin Gallery, Observatory Hill, The Rocks, Sydney.

2006, Prints from Cicada Press, COFA UNSW. Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

2006, People to People, Place to Place - Sydney Tokyo Nagoya - An Australia - Japan Matchbox Project. Kudos Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2006, Cicada Press. Marianne Newman Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2006, Contemporaries and Collectables, Medecins Sans Frontieres. Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

2006, Double Bush Binding. Waseda University Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.

2006, Cicada Press Prints. Impressions on Paper Gallery, Canberra, ACT.

2006, Philanthropy Rules OK. Orange Regional Gallery, Orange, NSW.

2006, Sydney 5 - Rew Hanks, Michael Kempson, Bruce Latimer, Euan Macleod and Reg Mombassa. Adele Boag Gallery, Adelaide, SA.

2005, Surface Tension – Twenty One Australian Printmakers. Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS.

2005, Thai-Australian Contemporary Prints, 2005. Chiangmai University Art Museum, Chiangmai, Thailand.

2005, Custom Prints Unpacked. The Delmar Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2005, The Herding Instinct, Animal Groupings from the DRG Collection. Dubbo Regional Gallery, Dubo, NSW.

2005, Contemporaries and Collectables, Medecins Sans Frontieres. Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

2005, Collaboration – Sydney Printmakers. Touring exhibition: Gosford Regional Gallery; Tweed River Regional Gallery; Noosa Regional Gallery, Gosford, NSW; Murwillumbah South, NSW; Noosa, QLD.

2005, Print Out – Prints from the Permanent Collection. Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Burnie, TAS.

2005, Pearl. Sheffer Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2005, An Embarrassment of Riches, Prints from Cicada Press . John Miller Gallery, Newcastle, NSW.

2005, Brisbane Art Fair. Exhibition and Conference Centre, Brisbane, QLD.

2005, Small Wonders. The Delmar Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2004, Contemporary Australian Prints – from the Collection. The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.

2004, Surface Tension – Twenty One Australian Printmakers. National Arts Club, The New York Society of Etchers, New York, NY.

2004, Miniare, Australian Selection from the Montreal International Miniture Prints Biennial. Access Gallery and Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Sydney, NSW.

2004, 4.6%. Sir Hermann Black Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2004, Surface Tension – Twenty One Australian Printmakers. Gallery 101, Melbourne, VIC.

2004, Roses and Thorns. Amnesty International Australia and COFA Exhibition and Performance Space, Sydney, NSW.

2004, COFA Fundraiser. Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2003, Contemporary Australian Prints. Campbell Hall Gallery, Western Oregon University, West Oregon, USA.

2003, Contemporary Australian Prints. Gallery East, University of Eastern Utah, Price, Utah, USA.

2002, 2nd International Biennale of Miniprints. Ville - Marie, Quebec, Canada.

2000, The Art on Paper Fair 2000. Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London.

1999, Sydney Printmakers, Australia and Grabadores De Chile, International Cultural Exchange Exhibition. Museum of Modern Art, University of Chile, Chile.

1997, 22nd International Biennial of Graphic Art. Cankarjev dom - Cultural and Congress Centre, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Exhibitions Curated

2007, Crossing Cultures 2. Blacktown Arts Centre, Blacktown, NSW.

2006, Prints from Cicada Press COFA UNSW. Michael Nagy Fine Art, Sydney, NSW.

2006, Cicada Press . Marianne Newman Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

2006, Cicada Press. Impressions on Paper Gallery, Canberra, ACT.

2005, Custom Prints Unpacked . The Delmar Gallery, Trinity Grammar , Sydney, NSW.

2005, An Embarrassment of Riches, Prints from Cicada Press. John Miller Gallery, Newcastle, NSW.

Conference Papers

Kempson, M. (2007). Cicada as a Teaching Process. Sixth Australian Print Symposium, (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT.

Kempson, M. (2006). Grunt, Pull, Grind and Scrape - Autographic Printmaking and the Protestant Work Ethic. The development and activities of Cicada Press, at the College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales, Sydney. A practical example of a tertiary research paradigm for printmaking. Why Make Prints 2, Cutting Remarks, (La Trobe University, Bendigo, VIC.

Kempson, M. (2006). Where to Now, the Future for Printmaking. Past, Present, Future; Printmaking in Sydney in conjunction with 'Sydney Prints - 45 Years of the Sydney Printmakers', (S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, NSW.

Kempson, M. (2005). Cicada Press, A Brief History. The Dynamics of Printmaking, (College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney, NSW.

Collections

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Old Parliament House Collection, Canberra; National Centre of Fine Arts, Egypt; Chaing Mai Contemporary Art Museum, Thailand; Bathurst Regional Gallery, NSW; Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania; Broken Hill City Art Gallery, NSW; Campbelltown City Art Gallery, NSW; Canberra Regional Gallery, ACT; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, NSW; City of Hamilton Regional Gallery, Victoria; Dubbo Regional Gallery, NSW; La Trobe Regional Gallery, VIC; Gladstone Regional Art Gallery, QLD; Grafton Regional Art Gallery, NSW; Gold Coast City Art Gallery, QLD; Manly Art Gallery and Museum, NSW; Orange Regional Gallery, NSW; Penrith Regional Gallery and Lewers Bequest, NSW; Rockhampton Art Gallery, Queensland; Wagga Wagga City Art Gallery, NSW; Warrnambool Art Gallery, VIC; State Library of NSW; Queensland State Library, James Hardy Collection; State Library of Victoria; Macquarie University, NSW; La Trobe University Art Museum, VIC; Monash University, Gippsland; Queensland University of Technology Art Museum; University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD; University of Central Queensland, Rockhampton, QLD; Chiang Mai University, Thailand; The University of NSW; The University of Sydney, NSW; Print Council of Australia; Artbank. ,

Professional Associations

Cicada Press (Director)

Print Council of Australia

Sydney Printmakers

Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiangmai, Thailand

Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China

Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK