About
Take a peek under the hood and explore the intent behind Damien’s work, his inspiration and successes along his journey.
Damien Baumgartner is a surrealist artist based in Melbourne, Australia. His unique take on Australia’s landscape delivers previously unseen perspectives of rural and highway environments. Seen through low level perspectives with roadkill often punctuating the foreground, the paintings explore the strangeness and melancholy of roads and highways and their relationship to fauna and the environment.
Damien completed his Masters of Fine Art at the University of Tasmania examining the visual and psychological implications of roads and highways in northern Tasmania. He now lives in Melbourne and continues to paint, draw and illustrate with his unique surrealist style.
Damien grew up in Melbourne and Launceston, Tasmania. Whilst working as a wildlife monitor on a windfarm on the northwest tip of Tasmania he was inspired on his present artistic path.
my art
From the patterned glint on the wings of a fly to the mirage that hangs over the horizon through the roads’ radiant heat, I find inspiration in many Australian landscapes. I choose to express this inspiration through oil paint on canvas. I have chosen as my major artistic focus the roads, roadsides and highways within Australian landscapes. These road environments, containing roadkill, decay and flotsam, have a dynamic and desolate nature and a strangeness that I find akin to the surreal. Such qualities make the roadside a very interesting place to stop my car, inhabit and sketch.
BRETT WHITELEY TRAVELLING SCHOLARSHIP FINALIST 2005
GLOVER PRIZE FINALIST 2014
Group Exhibitions
2012 Contempo, Libby Edwards Galleries Melbourne
2012 Mad Men, Libby Edwards Galleries Melbourne
2011 Contempo, Libby Edwards Galleries Melbourne
2008 Group Show, Libby Edwards Galleries Melbourne
2007 Group Show, Libby Edwards Galleries Melbourne
2006 National Works on Paper Exhibition - Mornington Peninsula Gallery
2006 ‘Road River Zone Aftermaths’ CAST 3 into1 solo exhibition
2005 ‘Roadside Reality’ Solo Exhibition, University of Tas.
2005 Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship finalist Exhibition
2004 ‘The John Glover Art Prize’ finalist Exhibition, Evandale
2003 ‘Comgraph Digital Art Awards’ Merit Award
2002 Mandorla Art Prize ‘Images of Christ’ Final selection exhibition
2001 ‘Monumental in the Minute’ Solo exhibition at Cucina Simpatica,
2000 ‘2d or not2d’ Honours exhibition at the University of Tasmania
1999 Surge Studio Opening Exhibition, Launceston
1999 ‘Progressions’ Photography Collective Project