Stephen Eastaugh: Antarctic Work

Stephen was born in Melbourne in 1960 and graduated from the Victorian College for the Arts in 1981. As a young artist he exhibited alongside Dale Frank, Stieg Persson, Louise Hearman, Bill Henson, Mike Parr and Fiona Hall, but his wanderlust saw him obsessed with travel rather than staying in any one location to build a traditional art career. His CV is impressive, listing 68 national and international solo exhibitions since 1987. His travelogue is even more impressive. So too is the list of collections that house his work, some of which include the National Gallery of Australia, The Phillip Morris Collection, The National Gallery of Victoria, Parliament House Canberra, Australian Antarctic Division Collection, Artbank, and the Faber Castell Collection.

Stephen Eastaugh is a peripatetic Australian artist who has travelled to and worked in eighty countries on all seven continents since 1986. Among his most successful forays are several to the Antarctic region. He had residencies with the Australia Antarctic Division in 2002/2003 at Davis Station, and then a very rare winter-over one at Mawson Station in 2009. During the intervening years he had residencies aboard QUARK Expedition cruises in the Southern Ocean. Eastaugh specializes in the use of locally found materials in his artworks, and while at Davis Station created a sculpture garden out of construction and laboratory scrap while also painting small works on canvas.

In 2009 he spent 11 months at the Mawson Station [the windiest place on Earth] in East Antarctica when he was the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow. He had to undergo a rigorous military adaptability psychological test in order to receive permission for such a long stay. He noted whilst there, "the concept of home has become somewhat fuzzy in my head. That kind of makes Antarctica intriguing to me because Antarctica is no body's home, and therefore it becomes strangely cosy for me. Work that out!"

Materials in the archive include paintings on a variety of substrates, photographs, catalogs, exhibition announcements, short films and press materials.

• CAE1042: Lita Albuquerque: Stellar Axis, Antarctica
• CAE1103: Joan Myers: Wondrous Cold: An Antarctic Journey
• CAE1112: Simon Balm: Stellar Axis, Antarctica
• CAE1116: Chris Drury: Antarctica
• CAE1117: William L. Fox: Terra Antarctica
• CAE1202: David Rosenthal: Paintings of the North and South Polar Regions
• CAE1217: Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid: Ice Music
• CAE1218: Jean de Pomereu: Antarctic Work
• CAE1219: Stuart Klipper: The Antarctic, From the Circle to the Pole
• CAE1307: Chris Kannen: An Antarctic Extended Season
• CAE1605: Anna McKee: 68,000 Years of Ice
• CAE1806: Bruce Licher: Stamping Antarctica
• CAE1910: Helen Glazer: Walking in Antarctica