Orr, Jill Dr
Position: Senior Lecturer, Fine Art
Study area: Visual Art
Location: Camp Street Campus, Post Office Building, Room P215
Phone: 5327 8625
Email: j.orr@federation.edu.au
ORDIC iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0335-7382
Qualifications
Dr of Philosophy in Fine Art, Monash University, 2012
Masters of Art in Fine Art, RMIT University, 1994
Higher Diploma of Secondary Teaching, Melbourne College of Advanced Education, 1975
Teaching
Courses
- Bachelor of Fine Art
- Supervisor of Honours, Masters and PhD fine art and performance students
- Doctor of Philosophy: Research
- Masters in Visual Art: Research
- Honours in Visual Arts: Research
Units
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD): (VARTS9002): 023233D
- Masters in Visual Arts: (VARTS8001). 4909TEQSA PRV 12151
- Honours: HS8 4909 TEQSA PRV12151
Biography
Jill Orr’s work centres on the psycho-social and environmental where she draws on land and identities as they are shaped in, on and with the environment be it country or urban locales. Orr grapples with the balance and discord that exists at the heart of relations between the human spirit, art and nature. Orr is a performance artist crossing between performances for live audiences and performances for the camera. She has produced iconic images reflecting an Australian perspective.
Jill has presented works in Australia and internationally since the late 1970’s and is regularly invited to exhibit in international curated exhibitions and events. She was represented in the inaugural Venice International Performance Art Week in 2012. She was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship to produce Antipodean Epic from 2015-17. Commissioned works between 2018 and 2019 include Detritus Springs, Listen, Laundry, and Dark Night. In 2020-2021, Jill was represented in Australia: Antipodean Stories at PAC Padiglione d’Art Contemporanea, Milan, curated by Eugenio Viola. This Tree was commissioned for MUMA’s 2021-2, Tree Story. Jill was represented in Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now at the National Gallery of Australia and is represented by This is No Fantasy who presented Mitre Lake at Art Basel and Melbourne 2022. In 2024, Orr exhibited The Promised Land Refigured at Linden New Art for Photo24.
Areas of expertise
- Performance Art
- Site Specific Performance
- Photography, video and physical theatre
- Painting
- Psycho-social issues surrounding environmental and place based works
- Ephemeral works
- Documentation
- Installation
- Collaboration
Research interests
Space, Place and Recurring History are areas through which practice led research enables, articulates and deepens relations to places that have been impacted through colonization, cultural, social, historical and environmental forces.
Site specific works give voice to places, spaces and environments as living entities through which human and non-human interactivity are central in grounded artistic responses. Jill Orr places emphasis on the artistic imaginary which, when in constant focus, enables visualisation of the past, present and future as fluid and porous over time. Her interest in an empathetic and poetic performativity that can sustainably compliment interdisciplinary work through expanded artistic fields, is constantly evolving.
Supervision
Five PhD supervisions completed
Three PhD's currently ongoing
Eight Masters supervisions completed
Two Masters supervisions ongoing
Eighteen Honours completed
One Honours supervision ongoing
Publications
Exhibitions and performances
Juried/curated group and solo exhibitions (last 10 yrs)
2024 The Promised Land Refigured, Linden New Art, for Photo 24.
2023 Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, 2023, Finalist and Highly Commended.
2023 Ingredients for a Precarious Meal, This is No Fantasy Group Show , May-June 2023.
2023 Performing the Archive in Leisa Shelton’s Archiving the Ephemeral at the Abbotsford Convent with Stelarc and myself.
2022 Beating About the Bush: A New Lens on Australian Impressionism, Art Gallery of Ballarat.
2022 Southern Cross Reclaimed, This is No Fantasy is Dianne Tanzer and Nicola Stein, 108-110 Gertrude St, Fitzroy, VIC.
2022 Falling and Flight, Southern Western, Mildura Art Centre, curated by Gareth Hart and Jane Polkinghorne.
2022 Southern Cross Reclaimed, This is No Fantasy, is Dianne Tanzer and Nicola Stein for Art Basel online from Feb 9th – Feb 12th 2022.
2021-22 Exhume the Grave – McCubbin and Contemporary Art, Geelong Gallery curated by Lisa Sullivan.
2021 This Tree, Tree Story, Monash Museum of Art, curated and commissioned by Charlotte Day.
2020-21 Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia.
2020 Australia: Antipodean Stories at PAC Padiglione d’Art Contemporanea, Milan curated by Eugenio Viola.
2019 Dark Night, performance for Dance Massive, produced by Dancehouse at the Abbotsford Convent South Laundry.
2019 Laundry, performance for Temporal Proximities, curated by Kelli Alred at the Abottsford Convent South Laundry.
2018 Listening, Unconformity Festival, Queenstown Tasmania.
2018 Detritus Springs, Biennale of Australian Art, curated by Julie Collins.
2018 Chaos and Order: 120 Years of collecting at RMIT, curated by Jon Buckingham,
2018 Dark Night, performance commissioned for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018 opening weekend. Curated by Lara Nicholls.
2017 Antipodean Epic, video installation, InExtremis, Arthouse, Melbourne.
2017 Cracks in the Seams with Christina Simons and the Arts Academy performing Arts Students, for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.
2017 Finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art. Melbourne.
2017 States of Being: the elemental importance of water, curated by Anne Bennett, Hatch Gallery, Ivanhoe.
2017 Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990’s, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
2017 Freshwater, SAM, Shepparton Art Museum, curated by Anne Briers.
2017 Photography 130 – Behind the Lens: 130 years of RMIT photography, RMIT Gallery curated by Shane Hulbert.
2017 Red, Green, Blue: A History of Australian Video Art curated by Matthew Perkins, Griffith University Gallery.
2016-17 Birds: Flight Paths in Australian Art, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, Victoria.
2016 A Wallaby Sat Here Once: Small Acts of Celebration, Curated by Lyndal Jones, Avoca Projects Inc. Watford House, Avoca Victoria.
2016 Utopia du Jour, Manningham Art Gallery,curated by Megan McEvoy, Melbourne.
2016 Brazil: Antipodean Epic, performance, curated by Fernando Ribiera, Belo Horizonte, Biennale, Brazil.
2016 The Quarry: Antipodean Epic, performance event for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale curated by Julie Collins, Lorne Victoria.
2016 We Stand Together, We Stand Alone, Jill Orr in collaboration with Third Year Acting Company, Arts Academy, Federation University, Mining Exchange, Ballarat.
2016 Antipodean Epic, photographs and video, Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne.
2016 Laughing Waters Road: Art Landscape and Memory in Eltham, Catalogue, & Exhibition of the Nillumbik Shire Artist in Residence Program.
2016 Fleurieu Art Prize. Finalist, Samstag Museum South Australia.
2015 Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes, National Gallery of Victoria. Melbourne.
2015 Antipodean Epic, live performance Mildura Palimpsest Biennale #10, Mildura.
2015 Mentoring and Key Note Presentation for the Marina Abramovic: In Residence, John Kaldor Public Art Project 30, Pier 2/3, Sydney.
2015 About Trees, Zentrum Paul Klee, curated by Peter Fischer, Bern, Switzerland.
2015 Trilogy, performance & videos for Performance, Presence, Video Time, curated by Anne Marsh, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.
2014 Trilogy site-specific performance for the Melaka Performance and Art Festival, Melaka, Malaysia.
2014 We create the image together II, performance, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin.
2014 Trilogy: we create the image together I, performance, II Bipolar International Meeting of Women Performance Artists in Sopot, curated by Arti Gowowski, National Gallery of Art, Poland.
2013-14 Sea of Dreams: Port Phillip Bay 1915-2013 (Part Two), Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, Victoria.
Publications/reviews/interviews
2024 https://artguide.com.au/talking-promises-with-jill-orr/
2018, Thresholds to Other Worlds: Jill Orr’s Ritual Performances, Anne Marsh, Eyeline Contemporary Art Number 90 Australia.
Speak To Me, Conversations with the Flinders University Art Collections, Editor, Nic Brown, Flinders University Art Museum, South Australia, 2016
Kiffy Rubbo Curating the 80’s, Jill Orr pp 121-122, edited by Janine Burke and Helen Hughes, Scribe Melbourne, 2016
Performance, Ritual, Document, Anne Marsh, Macmillan Art Publishing, Melbourne, 2014
Art Insight, Third Edition, Lou Chamberlain, Nelson Cengage Learning, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom, United States, 2012
Look: Contemporary Australian Photography since 1980. Anne Marsh, MacMillan Melbourne, Australia, 2010
Heat: Art, People & Climate Change, Jill Orr, Trans discourse 1.: Mediated Environments, Editors, Andrea Gleiniger, Angelika Hilbeck, Jill Scott, Springer Wein, New York, 2011
When You Think About Art: The Ewing and George Paton Gallery 1971 – 2008. Edited by Helen Vivian published by Macmillan Art Publishing. 2008
Art in Sight: Volume 2, L. Chamberlain, McGraw Hill Co. 2006
The Darkroom Photography and the Theatre of Desire Anne Marsh, Macmillan Art Publishing. 2003
At Home in Australia Peter Conrad, National Gallery of Australia in association with Thames and Hudson. 2003
Australian Art in the National Gallery of Australia edited by Anne Gray, produced by the Publications Department of the National Gallery of Australia. 2003
Peripheral Vision Contemporary Australian Art 1970-1994 Charles Green, Craftsman House. 1996
Art in Sight L. Chamberlain, McGraw Hill Book Co. 1996
Art Now Contemporary Art Post 1970 D. Williams and C. Simpson, McGraw Hill Book co. 1994
Body and Self: Performance Art in Australia 1969-92 Anne Marsh Oxford University Press. 1993
Sight Lines: Women’s Art and Perspectives in Australia, Sandy Kirby, Craftsman House. 1992
Anything Goes; Art in Australia 1970-1980 Ed. Paul Taylor Art & Text, Melbourne. 1984
Experimental Art Foundation, Performance Week, Ed. Noel Sheridan, Experimental Art Foundation Press, Adelaide. 1980
Live Art Australia and America Ed. Jane Kent and Anne Marsh self published Adelaide. 1984
New Art Three; Profiles in Contemporary Australian Art, Ed. N. Dury Craftsman House. 1989
Field of Vision: A Decade of Women’s Art in the Seventies, Janine Bourke Viking Press, Melbourne. 1990
Catalogues
2016 Laughing Waters Road, Art Landscape and Memory, Jane Woollard, Nillumbik Shire Council
2015 About Trees, Paul Klee Zentrum, Bern Switzerland
2012 The Promised Land, Jenny Port Gallery hosted by the John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne
2011 Between Somewhere and Nowhere, performative photographs, Jenny Port Gallery
Black Box, White Cube: Aspects of Performance in Contemporary Australian Art, written and curated by Steven Tonkin, Victorian Arts Centre, 2011
Stormy Weather, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. 2010-2011
Faith in a Faithless Land, 2009. Essay by Damian Smith
The Field, Australian Art 1968-2002, National Gallery of Victoria
Ash: Jill Orr, Mass Gallery Melbourne 2002, essay by Helen Vivian
Eye-deals, Griffith Artworks March 2000
Telling Tales, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney Curated and written by Jackie Dunn and Jill Bennett 1998
Festivities Issue No. 12, Melbourne Festival 1997
Pulse Fiction, October / November 1997 Plimsoll gallery, Centre for the Arts Hobart - Curated by Leigh Hobba
The Beach, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, catalogue essay by Geoffrey Dutton 1994
Persona Cognita, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Essay Museum of Selves by Juliana Engberg 1994
Tony Scott and Jill Orr Looking in and Looking Out, paintings at Meridian Gallery, essay by Roger Taylor 1994
Raising the Spirits, Museum of Modern Art at Heide The Bride and the Bachelors, essay by Anne Marsh 1994
25 Years of Performance Art in Australia, curator Nick Waterlow 1994 University of NSW College of Fine Arts
Jill Orr. Performance Documentation 1978-1988, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne The “I “in the Gaze: Aspects of the Body and the Self in Performance works by Jill Orr essay by Anne Marsh
Women at Work George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University 1980 edited by J Annear and A Danko
Act 3: Ten Australian performance Artists, Canberra School of Art, Australian National University, Canberra Oct. 1982
Articles and interviews (last 10 yrs)
2024 https://artguide.com.au/talking-promises-with-jill-orr/
2016 Provocation, Disquisitions, Anne Marsh, Art and Australia online, 2016
2015 Mishka Henner and Jill Orr: Performing to the All Seeing Eye, Helen Vivian, Artlink, Performative Quarterly, Issue 35:3 September 2015. Contemporary Art of Australia and Asia-Pacific. pp 52-57
2015 Against The Grain, Andrew Stephens for Spectrum, The Saturday Age Saturday 12th September 2015, pp 16-17
2014 Dancehouse Diary Issue 6/ 2014. The Body in the Raw Nudity today. Phillip Adams in Conversation with Jill Orr
2013 Performance Perspectives: Interview presented by Das Platforms, directed by Di Smith and Produced by Nick Garner Video: http://youtu.be/tRCw--nEKrE
2013 Venice International Performance Art Week, Interview by A.E. Zimmer Performa Magazine, 20/02/2013 http://performamagazine.tumblr.com/post/43524463704/venice-international-performance-art-week#notes
2012 Interview with Claire Bridge for Art World Women,http://artworldwomen.com/jill-orr-the-promised-land-part-1/" and Part 2
Jill Orr: Between Somewhere and Nowhere, In The Galleries, Dan Rule, The Age, Saturday, November 12 2011
Whats On, Visual Art, Monash Gallery of Art, Tuesday Feb. 1st, 2011
On My Mind, Anne Marsh, FOAM, International Photography, #25 Traces, Magazine, Winter 2010
Artist makes her Mark in the Theatre of Absence, Megan Backhouse, The Age 24/09/10 p 14
Dig it! The hole in Australian Contemporary Art, Glenn Barkley, Artlink, Contemporary art of Australia & the Australia Pacific, Vol 30 no 2. 2010. p 30-33
Lyndal Jones, Jill Orr, Utako Shindo, Bindi Cole & Ash Keating: Interview by Din Heagney & Helen Hughes, un. Magazine Issue 4.1, June 2010
The Goulish art of Witchcraft, Robert Nelson, Visual Art, The Age Wednesday June 23, 2010, p 18
Around the Galleries: Dan Rule, The Age, Saturday June 12, 2010, A2 p 23
Water as Art, Australia Day 2010. The Age, Tuesday January 26, 2010
Greenwash #5 , Patrick Jones , Trouble Magazine, October 2009
Sustainable Fusion Reactions, Interventions through the Public Domain. Jill Orr AQUADS Research Report 2009 – peer reviewed
Jill Orr: Faith in a Faithless Land and The Southern Cross – to bear and behold, Kirsten Rann, Photophile August Number 87, Melbourne 2009
Extreme Acts: Live Remade & Remediated Anne Marsh, Eyeline Contemporary Visual Arts Number 69, 2009
Greenwash, Patrick Jones, Trouble Magazine October 2009, pp 63-65
A Dreamscape of human and environmental loss. Robert Nelson The Age Wednesday May 20, 2009. p 16
Links
7a* 11d.ca, International Performance Art archive, Toronto, Canada: Hunger 3, 2002
YouTube: Venice International Performance Art Week, Jill Orr, The Promised Land
YouTube: Melaka Art and Performance Festival see Anne L. Poulain and Jill Orr
Press Reviews for the Venice International Performance Art Week, 2012
Seminar presentations
Seminars presented in Melbourne, Sydney, Venice, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte and Brazil.
Associations
National Association of Visual Art (NAVA)