Michael Doolan
Artist working across sculpture, installation, and drawing
Michael Doolan is a mid-career artist whose practice moves across sculpture, installation, and drawing. His work has been exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally, and is recognised through awards, commissions, competitive research funding, and public presentations. Over time, his practice has shifted from earlier narrative- and image-led concerns toward a more sustained investigation of threshold, structure, visible construction, and unstable relation.
Central to Doolan’s current body of work, developed under the framework At the Threshold, is an interest in forms that approach function without resolving into it. Through sculpture and drawing, he constructs structures that suggest support, passage, enclosure, and occupation, yet remain suspended between use and refusal. In these works, visible construction — edges, joins, apertures, supports, and interruptions — is not merely the residue of process, but the means through which meaning is generated. The work approaches the uncanny not through distortion or narrative, but through forms that remain familiar while resisting full agreement with their apparent function.
Doolan’s sculptures are often developed from cut and assembled cardboard maquettes, later translated into bronze while retaining their seams, compressions, and layered surfaces. The drawings extend this enquiry in a parallel register, testing how line, measure, interruption, and material trace can remain provisional. Across both media, the work seeks to hold structure at the threshold of resolution, sustaining a condition in which recognition remains possible but incomplete.
Doolan completed a PhD at Monash University in 2013, and has exhibited in museums, galleries, and biennales including the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, Ipswich Art Gallery, Castlemaine Art Museum, the Powerhouse Museum, and the Korea International Ceramics Biennale. His work is held in significant public, institutional, corporate, and private collections.
Education
2013 — PhD, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2001 — MA, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
1981 — BA, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 — Michael Doolan, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS
2021 — Michael Doolan, Bett Gallery, Hobart, TAS
2018 — Stories with Endings Changed, Jan Manton Art, Brisbane, QLD
2017 — Michael Doolan: New and Recent Work, Michael Reid, Sydney + Berlin
2017 — World without World, Castlemaine Art Museum, VIC
2015 — World within World, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2013 — Caution and Reassurance, Bett Gallery, Hobart, TAS
2013 — Between Wishes and Fears: A Studio Investigation of the Fairy Tale, MADA Gallery, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC
2012 — Between Wishes and Fears, Jan Manton Art, Brisbane, QLD
2011 — Cautionary Tales, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2010 — Once Upon a Time, Federation Square, Melbourne, VIC
2007 — For Now and For Ever, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2005 — Boo Who?, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2004 — Never Ever Land, Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS
2003 — Good as Gold, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 — Iconic Loved Unexpected, Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, NSW
2025 — Marquette Sculpture Award, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, Langwarrin, VIC
2025 — Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC
2025 — Art Month Double Bay, Arts-Matter, curated by Artbank, Sydney, NSW
2024 — Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC
2023 — Junior Curators: Mysterious Realms, Ipswich Art Gallery, QLD
2022 — Glow Winter Arts Festival, Central Park, Malvern East, VIC
2022 — Move It, Move It!, Franklin Street Frames, Metro Tunnel Creative Program, VIC
2021 — Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC
2020 — McClelland Small Sculpture Award, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, VIC
2019 — Korea International Ceramics Biennale, South Korea
2018 — SPEED: Mobility and Exchange, Mona Foma / Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, TAS
2017 — Soft Sculpture, Ipswich Art Gallery, QLD
2015 — City of Hobart Art Prize, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, TAS
2014 — Narratives of New, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, TAS
2012 — Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale, Jakarta, Indonesia
2010 — Your Move: Australian Artists Play Chess, Bendigo Art Gallery; UQ Art Museum; McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park; Samstag Museum
2007 — McClelland Sculpture Survey, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, VIC
2006 — Strange Cargo: Contemporary Art as a State of Encounter, touring exhibition
2005 — Trans Ceramic Art, 3rd World International Ceramics Biennale, Seoul, South Korea
1999 — Contemporary Australian Craft, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; touring Japan
Public Art Commissions
2022 — Cautionary Note, Glow Winter Arts Festival, City of Stonnington, Melbourne, VIC
2014 — Happy Ending?, Bendigo Art Gallery, VIC
2013 — Between Wishes and Dreams, Lady Cilento Royal Children’s Hospital, QLD
2010 — Once Upon a Time, Federation Square, Melbourne, VIC
Awards / Grants / Residencies
2014 — Victorian Public Sculpture Fund, Arts Victoria
2009 — Connections Residency, Australia Council for the Arts
2009 — City of Manningham Contemporary Ceramics Award
2005 — Arts Development Grant, Australia Council for the Arts
2002 — London Studio Residency, Australia Council for the Arts
1998 — Sidney Myer International Ceramics Award (Premier Award)
1997 — Australian Postgraduate Award
1995 — 14th International Biennale, Céramique d’Art, Vallauris, France (Gold Medal)
1995 — Sidney Myer Fund Australia Day Award
Collections
Artbank, Australia
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria
Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales
Ipswich Art Gallery, Queensland
Queensland University of Technology Art Museum
Château Musée, Vallauris, France
Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital, Brisbane
Besen Family Foundation
Deakin University, Victoria
Gold Coast City Gallery, Queensland
City of Manningham, Victoria
McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Victoria
Price Waterhouse Coopers
Ten Cubed
Monash University
Selected Publications & Reviews
2026 — P. Budge et al., Iconic Loved Unexpected, Newcastle Art Gallery, exhibition catalogue
2025 — L. Byrne, Marquette Sculpture Award, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, exhibition catalogue
2024 — M. Bywaters, Michael Doolan, exhibition catalogue
2024 — D. Durrant, “Artist debuts new ceramics,” The Examiner
2020 — R. Lindsay, F. Lindsay & R. Whitehouse, Ten Cubed 2010–2020: Concept. Collection. Gallery
2020 — J. Lee & Y. Choi, Korean Ceramic Biennale International Competition, exhibition catalogue
2018 — M. Bywaters & A. McDonald, SPEED: Mobility & Exchange, exhibition catalogue
2016 — M. Feast & H. Attrill, Michael Doolan: Education Resource, Bendigo Art Gallery
2015 — D. Rule, “Michael Doolan: World Within World,” The Sydney Morning Herald
2013 — M. Doolan, Between Wishes and Fears: A Studio Investigation of the Fairy Tale (PhD thesis)
2012 — L. Fichner-Rathus, Understanding Art (10th ed.)
2009 — S. Koop, Crackle: Contemporary Art from the Middle of Nowhere
2000 — S. Koop, “Michael Doolan,” Art & Text