ABOUT THE ARTIST

Micah Rustichelli is a Meanjin (Brisbane) based interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture, painting, drawing and performance. Rustichelli's practice broadly investigates the relationship between the self, the body and exterior reality. Across their creative modes they are keenly interested in the social, physical, and spiritual phenomena that contribute to the individual’s experience of their reality, and how each of these individual realities weave together to form the collective experience we share.

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In the process of obtaining their Graduate Certificate in Visual Arts from QCAD in 2022, the artist shifted their previous practice focus to explore applications of fine arts methodologies in the contexts of circus, club-kid and contemporary performance. Micah utilises acts of physical endurance, body modification and mental phenomena such as flow-state, trance, and hypnosis, as vessels to explore the vastness of selfhood and agency of the body in relation to this self. They focus on repurposed objects, derivative images and repetition of task and material; Building, destroying and recontextualising known materials and images in a constant cycle of creative ephemera.

 

This practice has allowed them to present these performance ideas at events such as Dark Mofo (Nachtlicker), Liveworks Festival (cLUB bENT), Woodford Fold Festival and Bowerytopia. In 2024 they had the opportunity to present their solo performance project A Body Which Draws Itself as part of Metro Arts’ One Night Stand program, thanks to the support of the Workroom Residency at Studio1. Current iterative exhibitions include Vengeance and Mercy, recently presented at Wreckers Artspace (Meanjin) and Demon Rhythm, an ongoing collection of 1000 painted images stolen from Instragram users, with the first 500 paintings debuting recently at Midsumma Festival 2024. In 2023 the artist took the inaugural Altimate.Showdown Champion title for alternative performance, as well as Artist of the Year award at the 62nd Queens Ball.