Josh Lord


Josh Lord started his career as an independent Australian artist in 1992, influenced by cultural movements and art genres including pop art, Dada and Surrealism. His paintings are a mix of all those styles and movements.

Early life and education

Lord was born and raised in the bay-side suburb of Mornington, Victoria, Australia. Lord has no formal fine art qualification; he is a self-taught artist and his inspiration and main influences to pursue a career in visual arts have been Germany's Bauhaus theory, John Brack, James Rosenquist, an American artist who was one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement Robert Rauschenberg and Barbara Kruger.

Career

In Lord's early career in the 1990s he found his inspiration and ideas by looking closely at the world around him. From his youth he was inspired by the street culture of Melbourne, coupled with the influence of pop art and magic realism. Many of his themes were very dark in meaning. His Smiley Face series in the style of pop art and surrealism was about fake people, whom on the one hand greet with a smile, then you begin to see the decaying skin around the smile, by the use of images of war and violence. The primary medium used was oil on canvas.
Lord left Australia at the beginning of 2000 as he felt that he had exhausted all of his art ideas at that point in time and that an obvious change was required. He traveled to Berlin, Scotland, Michigan, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Abroad he worked alongside artists that influenced his change of outlook and approach and thus a new style in his work began to emerge.
More recently he has explored the theme of future history, a term often used by science fiction writers. Lord's interpretation of Future History is to mean that the creation of something gives it a history of its own. When he returned to Melbourne he decided to move from using oil on canvas, to acrylic paint on wood.

Exhibitions and more

In 2008 his work was part of the Thrill & Suspense exhibition at Wall's Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands, where he exhibited alongside artists from the USA and the Netherlands. Of 19 artists that exhibited Lord, along with two others rated a mention. Wall's Gallery wrote, "With 'Thrill & Suspense' Walls Gallery presents its new exhibition of works by 19 young and talented artists. Hereby I like to give special attention to Stephen Elledge, Rolina Nell and Josh Lord. These three artists have made their mark abroad and are now shown for the first time in Amsterdam, and that in Walls Gallery."
In 2009 the Leader Community Newspapers interviewed Lord in an article titled "Art Show Brings Back Yesterday to Yarraville" by Florencia Cavallo. The article talks about his return to Australia and his new exhibition titled When it was Yesterday, at Fad Gallery, Melbourne. Mooks Report online editorial also featured a write up about the same exhibition and an interview with Lord. Mooks asked "What's been the single biggest highlight for you as an artist?" To which Lord responded “Commissioned by MacDonalds house Hong Kong and International house New York, I think it was doing the work, not where it hangs, and the idea that these people asked me to do it was awesome.”
In 2010 his work was featured in an exhibition titled Upgrade/Downgrade, at Open Concept Gallery, Michigan, USA. This was a multimedia exhibition demonstrating the experimentation and opposing relationship of nature versus or combined with technology. It included artists from all around the world.
Many shows followed such as Paradise Hills First Birthday in 2011 and Melbourne's Burning: Paradise Hills 2012, which Lord curated. Another in 2011 was Lord's solo exhibition at Melbourne's Gasworks Arts Park, called Do Electric Sheep Follow the Digital Herd. Melbourne radio station SYN 90.7 interviewed Lord about this show.
A photo of Lord's painting We're New, We're Retro, painted in 2005 was published in The Design Files magazine, in the Australian Homes section 2 February 2011 edition. The article was about the showroom/home of David and Lolly of Codename Tom. Scroll down to see the photos of details from the hallway with the caption "Details from the hallway, including We're New, We're Retro painting by Josh Lord, Australia c. 2005."
Lord's solo exhibition in 2014, This Used to Be the Future, was held at D11@Docklands art gallery in Melbourne. Using mainly acrylic house paint on board, his paintings focused on the theme of Future History, with the term referring to the science fiction subgenre future history. The exhibition featured 50 of Lord's works. On the opening night of This Used to Be the Future exhibition a live show was staged that featured Australian musicians Ollie Olsen and Ash Wednesday, who created electronic sounds with a visual arts backdrop. Lord's exhibitions often include a collaboration between artist and musicians, showcasing a mutual respect for Australian art and music. Amongst the array of subject matter of Lord's paintings were portraits of Melbourne musicians, including both Ollie and Ash. The exhibition ran for a period of two weeks and was an example of Lord's latest acquired style.
In October 2015 Hugo Race & The True Spirit released the official video of their new track "False Idols" on Glitterhouse Records. The video was directed by Matthew T. Ellery and features images of 11 paintings by Lord.
Lord talked to TAGG Magazine/Toorak Times in 2016 about his past exhibitions and influences, the present and future plans in an interview titled "Interview with Josh Lord" by Lisa Romeo.