Jordan Marani
Jordan Marani makes darkly humorous work involving personal narratives, cynical observations of the human condition and explorations of family, loss and the past. Through painting and sculpture employing bright colour, humour and word play, he explores the funny side of the dark side.
Marani makes art of the everyday, reflecting his immediate surroundings and community. His work is drawn from such crude and everyday references as suburban life, popular culture, booze, football, the art world and family history. Early works used materials from scavenged, recycled and reclaimed rubbish, such as paintings on boards salvaged from skips, bottletops, and food packaging, and from basic and impoverished materials, such as cardboard and house paint. Recent works continue to utilise humble materials, such as bed sheets and handkerchiefs, alongside more formal and polished works on board and canvas. Marani blends lowbrow culture with high art, with an insistence on the value of the working class and crass.
Over the last 30 years Marani’s work has been littered with profanity drawn from the ugly vernacular of Australian politics and the pub. He started creating text and four-letter word paintings in the late 1980s, with a series of ‘Shit Paintings’, and has been exploring word play, profanity and the joys of four-letter words ever since. His multi-faceted practice includes figurative and narrative-driven paintings alongside ongoing series of text-paintings, installation and found-object sculptures.
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From 2008-2011 Jordan was co-founder and director of Hell Gallery. His work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, the National Gallery of Victoria, NADA New York, Minor Attractions Art Fair, London, the Spinnerei Leipzig, SOCIAL Hobart, Shepparton Art Museum, Static Gallery Liverpool, Switchback Gallery, 200 Gertrude Street, Daine Singer, Neon Parc, Utopian Slumps, Ryan Renshaw, Ray Hughes Gallery, Powell Street Gallery and at ARIs including Death Be Kind, Inflight, Seventh, and West Space.
He has participated in residencies at the Leipzig International Art Programme in Germany, Driving Creek Pottery in Aotearoa New Zealand, Police Point Artist-in-Residence Program Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Australia Council Liverpool Residency and Gertrude Contemporary. His work is held in the collections of the Yarra City Council, Merri-bek Art Collection, LIA Leipzig, and Ararat Textile Art Museum.
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Jordan Marani
Education/ Professional
1988 – 1990 Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting), Victoria College, Prahran
2008 – 2011 Founder/ Co-director, Hell Gallery, MelbourneSolo exhibitions
2023 NOBODY’S HOME, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2022 NOBODY, Social, Hobart
2020 NOBODY, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2019 WORD ResArtis, Melbourne
2018 Autobiography, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2016 SHIT Happens, Ararat Regional Art Gallery, Ararat
2016 Plonk, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2015 BULLSHIT, Drawing Wall commission, Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton
2014 Colourful Language: The Charm Offensive, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2013 Idiot as an Artist, West Space, Melbourne
2013 Xmas is a Four-Letter Word, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2011 Ten Pound Poms and Other Stories, Static Gallery, Liverpool
2011 The Rest is Silence, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne (with Jess Johnson)
2010 Who cut the cheese? Two giants of contemporary art talk frankly of monumental tasks, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne (with Jess Johnson)
2009 Home is Where My Hell Is, Gippsland Centre for Art and Design (with Jess Johnson)
2009 Hell is Other People, Inflight Gallery, Hobart (with Jess Johnson)
2009 Flippin Heck, Hell Gallery, Melbourne (with Jess Johnson)
2008 Hellraiser: The Directors Cut, Hell Gallery, Melbourne (with Jess Johnson)
2007 This is Not a Love Schlong, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne (with Jess Johnson)
2001 Recent Works by Jordan Marani, Yelza, Melbourne
1996 For Your **** Pleasure, West Space, Melbourne
1994 Liquid Assets, Saratoga Night Club, Melbourne
1993 Binge, Studio 12, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne
1992 Head, Studio 12, 200 Gertrude Street, MelbourneGroup exhibitions
2024 Minor Attractions Art Fair, London, UK
2024 MELA, Alta Forma, Melbourne
2024 Works from the TAMA Collection, Ararat Textile Art Museum
2024 Fly Little Bird Gallery, Melbourne
2023 Manifesto, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
2022 Paul Guest Drawing Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery
2022 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, Geelong Gallery
2021 Bundoora Homestead, Melbourne
2021 Spring1883, Melbourne
2020 Paul Guest Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery
2020 Daine Singer at FAIR PRESENTED BY NADA
2020 Daine Singer at Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne
2020 Art Aid Gippsland, Gippsland Art Gallery
2020 Small Mercies, Creative Spaces, Melbourne
2019 Hauswerk, McClelland Gallery
2019 Arthur Guy Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery
2019 Geelong Print Print Prize, Geelong Art Gallery
2019 Castlemaine Experimental Print Prize, Castlemaine Art Museum
2019 McGivern Art Prize, Maroondah Art Gallery
2019 Incinerator Art Award, Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Bayside Contemporary Art Price, Bayside Art Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Lo Fi High, Toot Artspace, Melbourne
2018 Bayside Contemporary Art Price, Bayside Art Gallery, Melbourne2018 Incinerator Art Award, Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne
2018 Noel Counihan Commemorative Art Award, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
2018 Sedimente, Spinnerei Werkshau/ LIA Leipzig, Germany
2018 NADA New York, USA
2018 Winter Rundgang, LIA Leipzig, Germany
2017 Affects on Absorption, LIA Leipzig, Germany
2017 Open House, True Estate, Melbourne
2017 Icon, Richmond Town Hall, Melbourne
2017 Restless, VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
2017 Bundoora Homestead, Melbourne
2016 ACCA in the City, public art, ACCA, Melbourne
2016 Invited, Spinnerei Leipzig, Germany
2016 Is this thing on? Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
2015 Science Friction, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
2015 Spring 1883, The Establishment, Sydney
2015 The 3rd Bus Projects Editions, Bus Projects, Melbourne
2014 I Probably Don’t Like You, curated by Nick Devlin and Fergus Binns, The Alderman, Melbourne
2014 Faux Museum, c3, Melbourne
2014 Spring 1883 Art Fair, Melbourne
2014 Melbourne Art Fair Pop-Up, curated by Barry Keldoulis, Melbourne Art Fair at Cutler & Co, Melbourne
2014 No Werk, curated by Ace Wagstaff, Trocadero, Melbourne
2014 Industrial Estate, curated by Kym Maxwell, Melbourne
2014 Moreland Summer Show, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
2013 Drunk vs. Stoned III, curated by Geoff Newton, Neon Parc, Melbourne
2012 Deakin Small Sculpture Prize, Finalist, Deakin University Gallery, Victoria
2010 No Soul For Sale, Tate Modern, London
2010 Harrell Fletcher: The Sound We Make Together, National Gallery of Victoria
2010 NotFair, Block Projects, Melbourne
2010 The Memorial, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne
2009 Lorne Sculpture Exhibition, Lorne
2008 Honk If You Love Contemporary Art, Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane
2008 Flux Capacitor, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne
2008 Dirty Popsicles, Peloton Gallery, Sydney2008 Informal Rituals, TCB Gallery, Melbourne
2007 Cut n’ Paste, Peloton Gallery, Sydney
2000 – 2006 Helen Gory Gallery, Artists Garden, Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Victoria Park Gallery
1990s National Gallery of Victoria, George Paton Gallery, West Space, 200 Gertrude Street, Geelong Regional Art Gallery, Linden Gallery, Monash Gallery of Art, Tolarno Gallery, Deutscher Gallery, Ray Hughes GalleryResidencies
2025 (Forthcoming) Police Point Artist-in-Residence Program, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
2023 Driving Creek Pottery Residency, Coromandel Aotearoa, New Zealand
2019 Leipzig International Art Programme, Germany
2017 Leipzig International Art Programme, Germany
2011 Australia Council Liverpool Residency
1991-1993 Gertrude Street StudiosCollections
LIA, Leipzig
Yarra City Council
Merri-bek Art Collection
Ararat Regional Art GalleryBibliography
2022 Andrew Harper, “Howling into the void”, The Mercury, 16-17 April 2022
2019 Jane O’Neill, ‘Hauswerk’, catalogue essay, McClelland Gallery
2018 Laura Couttie, 'Autobiography', catalogue essay, Daine Singer, 2018
2017 David Wlazlo, 'Restless at VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery', Memo Review, 2018
2016 Sarah Werkmeister, 'Jordan Marani paints four-letter words', Art Guide, Australia
2016 Claire Capel-Stanley, 'Jordan Marani: Shit Happens' Art Almanac, Australia
2014 Roger Taylor, State of the Arts, PBS FM, 25 November 2014
2014 Steven Rendall, ‘Painting, writing, colour and profanity’, catalogue essay, Daine Singer
2014 Madeleine Dore, ‘Pop-ups level the playing field’, ArtsHub, 4 November 2014
2014 Dan Rule, ‘Furniture makes way for fine arts in Heidelberg West factory exhibition Industrial Estate’, The Age, 8 January 2014, p.20
2013 Robert Nelson, ‘A year of visual-arts invention from here and afar’, The Age, 27 December 2013
2013 Jonathan Nichols, ‘Xmas: Jordan Marani’, Stamm, October 2013
2013 Dan Rule, ‘Xmas is a Four-Letter Word’, The Age, 7 September 2013
2013 Dylan Rainforth, ‘Take a larrikin tour’, The Age, 4 September 2013
2013 Ace Wagstaff, Smartarts, RRR FM, 12 September 2013
2013 Roger Taylor, State of the Arts, PBS FM, 7 September 2013
2013 Nat Thomas, ‘Dodging a Bullet and Going Straight to Hell’, catalogue essay, Xmas is a Four-Letter Word, Daine Singer, Melbourne2013 ‘Jordan Marani: Xmas is a Four-Letter Word’, The Thousands, 31 August 2013
2013 Xmas is a Four-Letter Word, catalogue, Daine Singer, Melbourne
2013 Meg Watson, Concrete Playground
2010 ‘Hell Gallery Headed for London‘, Stateline Victoria, ABC
2010 Art Nation, ABC TV, 9/5/2010; 7.30 Report, ABC TV, 1 May 2010
