Olly READ (TAS)

 Olly Read is a transgender artist born, living and working in limilinaturi/Devonport, lutruwita/ Tasmania. His material-lead multidisciplinary practice explores the conception of being human as living in a flesh suit: fascinated by a reading of the body as both familiar and unfamiliar, inherently carrying with it uncertainty, anxiety, unease, intimacy, restlessness, vulnerability, alterity, and alienation. From baroque pearls as teeth and pantyhose stitched in frames as the 'skin-we-live-in', to pulsating robotics in soft sculpture: Read interrogates ideas of beauty, shame, pride, perception, gender, and sexuality. His current work examines the notion of the body as the vessel and means through which we manifest ourselves and through which we experience or relate to our environment, through the creation of immersive spaces.

Read holds a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Tasmania (2022) after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with first class Honours (2019) from the same. He is the winner of the 2018 Contemporary Art Tasmania (North) prize, the 2019 Sawtooth Art prize, and 2023 Marie Edwards Travel Scholarship. He has been on the board of Sawtooth ARI since 2020, as the secretary from 2021-2023, and vice-chair since 2023. He has exhibited at Junction Arts Festival, Rosny Barn (Rosny Farm Arts Centre), Devonport Regional Gallery, Sawtooth ARI multiple times, Plimsoll Gallery (UTAS), Powerhouse Gallery (UTAS) and The Long Gallery (Salamanca Arts Centre).