Artist Spotlight: Christopher Bassi

21 Mar 2024

Christopher Bassi (b.1990, Meanjin/Brisbane) is a painter of exceptional sensitivity to places and objects that are personally redolent of the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula, embracing a deep connection to his matrilineal Meriam and paternal Yupungathi heritage. His Indigenous Australian heritage, alongside his British and Muslim Indian ancestral ties, gives him a unique perspective for considering ideas of cultural identity, alternative genealogies, and colonial legacies in Australia and the South Pacific. 

Bassi has been recognised in major curated exhibitions, including The National 4: Australian Art Now, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney (2023), Mare Amoris | Sea of Love, UQ Museum, Queensland (2023), PORTRAIT23: Identity, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (2023), and Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia (2023). His works continue to be celebrated this year across a number of exciting projects:

Current: 2024 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art  

Bassi’s magnificent new work, Meeting a Mangrove (2024), is currently presented as part of the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Inner Sanctum, curated by José da Silva to gently delve into the private or sacred spaces we create. Featuring a life-sized representation of himself, Bassi’s large-scale painting Meeting a Mangrove references the creation narrative from the Book of Genesis, in which God gives life to Adam through a single touch. But here, the artist connects with his Meriam totem, a red mangrove, based on those seen in the coastal areas of Butchulla Country in southeast Queensland. It is a gesture that centres Indigenous knowledge systems and acknowledges the wisdom in non-human lifeforms and asks viewers to reflect on their own relationship with the natural world. 

See Bassi’s work on display at the Art Gallery of South Australia until 2 June 2024.

Upcoming: National tour of Primavera 

Bassi’s recent series of paintings featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s 2023 edition of Primavera: Young Australian Artists will travel Australia as a touring exhibition. This series, titled Monuments to the South West Waters of a Great Ocean, derives its name from the Arafura Sea, which lies to the west of the Torres Strait and Waiben (Thursday Island) — Bassi’s mother’s native land. The works celebrate this region’s storied past in fishing, pearl harvesting, and shell trade, transforming everyday objects into epic monuments through careful, luminous rendering. Such paintings are a means of storytelling and a method for exploring Bassi’s connection to Country.

Guest curated by Talia Smith and touring with the support of Museums & Galleries of NSW, Primavera will open at The Condensery, Somerset Regional Art Gallery (Queensland) on 13 July 2024.

Upcoming: New Monuments at Ames Yavuz, Sydney

Bassi’s highly anticipated second solo show at Ames Yavuz, Sydney, will open in May 2024. This new body of work continues the artist’s pursuit into a speculative oceanic thinking, one that moves through time and across scales to become powerful monuments to waters that connect us. New Monuments speaks to Bassi’s deep reverence for the ocean and its capacity to hold cultural memory, the weight of history, and tales of union and separation.

Image: (Top) Portrait of Christopher Bassi; photography by Joe Ruckli, courtesy of Art Guide Australia