Sanné Mestrom

About the work

Mestrom’s practice draws on 20th century iconic modernist works to explore the psychological, emotional and cultural significance attached to them. She explores how value is accorded to these objects, how they are always tied to their cultural and art historical contexts and how they may become substitutes for particular values or beliefs. Through replication, appropriation and disruption her work filters historical mythologies through her own systems of reference, questioning notions of lineage, originality and influence, further altered through her experience of ‘making’.

Photo by Jacquie Manning

About the artist

Sanné Mestrom’s practice draws on 20th century iconic modernist works to explore the psychological, emotional and cultural significance attached to them. She explores how value is accorded to these objects, how they are always tied to their cultural and art historical contexts and how they may become substitutes for particular values or beliefs. Through replication, appropriation and disruption her work filters historical mythologies through her own systems of reference, questioning notions of lineage, originality and influence, further altered through her experience of ‘making’.

Born in the Netherlands 1979, Mestrom moved to New Zealand in 1983, and now lives and works in Victoria. Mestrom holds a PhD in Fine Art (2008) and a Graduate Certificate in Public Art (2011), both from RMIT University. She was a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary in 2010-11, and has also held residencies in Mexico City, 2010, and Seoul, South Korea, 2001.

Recent solo exhibitions include Corrections: Sanné Mestrom, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale (2018); Corrections: Sanné Mestrom, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney (2017); Sanné Mestrom, Sullivan+Strumpf, Singapore (2017); Weeping Women, Ian Potter Public Sculpture Commission, Monash University Museum of Art (2014); The Internal Logic, West Space, Melbourne and La Trobe Regional Gallery, Gippsland, Victoria, (2013); and The Reclining Nude, Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2012). Mestrom presented major new large-scale works at Encounters, Art Basel Hong Kong (2017) curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor.

Recent selected group exhibitions include Auckland Art Fair, New Zealand (2018); Another Dimension, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, Victoria (2018); Unreal City, Firstdraft, Sydney (2018); Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2016); and Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria (2015).

She is the recipient of an Australia Council Grant, City of Melbourne grant, several Arts Victoria Creation Grants, winner of the 2013 Art & Australia Award, 2011 John Fries Memorial Prize, a NAVA Janet Holmes Artist Grant, the Siemens Post Graduate Fine Art Scholarship Award and an Australian Post Graduate Award for her PhD research.