Dylan Martorell

Transience, improvisation and collaboration form the basis of Dylan Martorell’s music-based art practice. Housed within the conceptual framework of a musical diaspora, his work is drawn to ways in which music travels through space and is affected by changes in geography, climate, culture and materials to become an agent for cross-cultural reciprocation.

Martorell’s works typically involve a highly disciplined and refined level of detail intertwined with an ad hoc improvisation and bowerbird aesthetic. Inspired by his global travels, major interests for the artist are the natural world, human ritual, ethnography and mythology. This interest manifests in his art through an almost synesthetic combination of colour, pattern, sound and line. Focusing on the use of site-specific gleaned materials and incorporating elements of upcycling, DIY culture, robotics, and alternative power sources, Martorell’s recent projects conducted in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia have focused on concepts of transience, portability and sustainability.

Martorell has exhibited and performed nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include Hazrat Prototypes, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2013; D’ameublement, curated by Francis E. Parker, Switchback Gallery, Monash University Gipplsand Campus, 2012; Agaues de Marco, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2011; Melpore Stringsects, (with Chaco Kato), Esplanade, Singapore, 2011; Duppy Musique Povera, Object Gallery, Sydney, 2011; Duppy Housing, Utopian Slumps, 2010;Musique Povera, Heide Museum of Modern Art Project Space, 2010; Roda Roda Soundsystem, (with Roda Roda Sound System) streets of Yogyakarta, 2011; Splintered Guilders, Lamington Drive, Melbourne, 2009; Stolon Tonals, Black and Blue, Kraton, RoomMate Gallery, Yogyakarta, 2010; Umbel Ballits, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, 2008; Hinterdact I and II, Über Gallery, Melbourne, 2008; and Panter Cluster Rimbone, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2007. Selected group exhibitions include Never-Never Land, Roslyn Oxley 9 in collaboration with Utopian Slumps, Sydney, 2014; Future Primitive, curated by Linda Michaels, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Heidelberg, 2013; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, 2012-13; Sonic Spheres, curated by Victoria Lynn, TarraWarra Biennial, 2012 (forthcoming); Bellowing Echoes, Gertrude Contemporary, 2012; Mis–Design, (Slow Art Collective) Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne; V.A., curated by Dylan Martorell, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2011; Keramaikou, ReMap 3 Athens, 2011; Critical Mobility, State of Design Festival Melbourne, 2011; New Psychedelia, curated by Sebastian Moody, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane,2011; Devil Had a Daughter, curated by Kirrilly Hammond, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne 2011; Black and Blue Gallery, carriageARTworks, 2010; In Order Out, Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne, 2010; Slow Art Collective, Incinerator Arts Complex, Melbourne, 2009;Craft Cubed, collaboration with Sunday Morning Designs, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, 2009; Drawing Folio, Block Projects, Melbourne, 2009; and Skin and Bones, Penthouse Mouse, Melbourne, 2008. Martorell is a member of the Slow Art Collective with Tony Adams and Chaco Kato, and part of the experimental music groups Hi God People, Snawklor and John Nixon’s The Donkeys Tail. He recently completed a residency at Monash University, Gippsland campus, and an Asialink funded project entitled Sound Tracks which saw him undertake a project for the Jakarta Biennale, 2011; a residency at ComPeung, Chiang Mai province, Thailand, 2012 and a project for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, 2012.