Ian Strange (b.1982) is a transdisciplinary artist whose work explores the home, site-specificity, and landscape. His diverse practice includes collaborative community-based projects, architectural interventions, installations, and exhibitions resulting in photography, film, sculpture, site-specific works, research, and documentary works. His studio practice includes painting and drawing, as well as ongoing research and archival projects. Additionally, he has created collaborative projects with other practitioners and institutions in the fields of dance, music, performance, and film.

Strange is best known for his ongoing series of large-scale architectural interventions, films, and photographic works that subvert the archetypal domestic home. These works and exhibitions have been created in the United States (‘SUBURBAN’, 2011–13); post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand (‘FINAL ACT’, 2013); Western Australia and Victoria, Australia (‘SHADOW’, 2015) (‘TARGET’, 2017) (‘DALISON’, 2022); Katowice, Poland (‘ZŁOTY’, 2015); and in the United States throughout Ohio’s rust-belt region, (‘ISLAND’, 2015–17) ('PENUMBRA', 2022). This has resulted in exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art, the Canterbury Museum, FotoFocus Biennial, FORM Gallery, RMIT University, Standard Practice NYC, Völklinger Hütte, the John Curtin Gallery, Cockatoo Island’s Turbine Hall, the Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), Moore Contemporary, and as a part of the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (‘LANDED’, 2014) at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA).

These bodies of work have included a number of collaborative projects: ‘DALISON’ (2022), a site-based installation, film, and sound work with US-based musician Trevor Powers (Youth Lagoon); a series of works and installations with designer and artist Virgil Abloh, including major sculpture commissions for Off-White in Melbourne, Sydney, and New York (‘Nothing is Finished,’ 2017); ‘TRACES’ (2017–2020), a collaboration with contemporary dance company Chunky Move and their creative director, choreographer Anouk Van Dijk; ‘FINAL ACT’ (2013), a collaboration with celebrated New Zealand cinematographer Alun Bollinger; and ’345 Franklin’ (2016), an architectural intervention with Detroit-based architect and artist Catie Newell and SiTE for ArtPrize 2016 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.

Most recently, Strange’s ongoing series of public light sculptures and installations have been commissioned by the Lyon Housemuseum (‘LIGHT INTERSECTIONS', 2019), by the City of Sydney, for its 2021 "Art and About" public art program (‘LIGHT INTERSECTIONS II’, 2021), and by Wyndham City ('SIGNALS', 2023).

In 2020, the John Curtin Gallery presented 'Suburban Interventions: 2008 – 2020,' marking the first comprehensive mid-career survey exhibition of Strange's works. In 2022, the FotoFocus Biennial presented 'Disturbed Home,' his first survey exhibition in North America, at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Damiani Editore subsequently released ‘Disturbed Home’ (2022), a comprehensive monograph featuring new scholarly essays by FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator Kevin Moore, and Britt Salvesen, Curator and Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department and the Prints and Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

In 2022, Strange premiered 'PENUMBRA' (2022), a significant new commission for the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial. He released ‘TRACES’, (2017–2020), created in collaboration with contemporary dance company Chunky Move and Dutch choreographer Anouk Van Dijk, and opened a series of exhibitions and screenings of the work ‘DALISON’ (2022), including at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing and the Art Academy of Cincinnati as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial. 

In 2023 and 2024, Strange began work on a new photographic series tracing the shared histories of fireworks and explosives in landscape and photography, with a collection of new works created in Ferijaz, Kosovo ('Jezerc', 2023), Völklinger, Germany; Krems, Austria; and Suhača, Bosnia.

In addition to these projects, Strange maintains an active studio-based research and archival practice. This work includes archival and research projects commissioned by the State Library of Queensland and the Asia Pacific Design Library ('The Corley Archive'); a 12-month pilot vertical studio program with RMIT University, exploring new avenues for artist-university collaboration and transdisciplinary studio practice; and a 2022 research project in partnership with the Art Academy of Cincinnati, CMC, and FotoFocus, underpinning new site-based works.

Between 2020 and 2021, Strange was appointed Guest Artistic Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), overseeing the museum's five-year forward curatorial program, acquisitions, research, publishing, and new project commissions. In 2022, he co-founded the roaming site-based curatorial project 'AT HOME' alongside Jedda Andrews, Dr. Rory Hyde (University of Melbourne), Steve Mintern and Simon Robinson (OFFICE), Dr. Mathan Ratinam, Emma Pegrum, and Miriam McGarry (Hidden Cities).

Strange has presented and lectured on his work at institutions including Harvard Graduate School of Design, Parsons School of Design, Sotheby's Institute of Art, Melbourne School of Design, TEDx Sydney, Columbia College Chicago, and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). His work has been published widely, including in ICON, Document Journal, Politics of Public Space Volumes 1 & 2, The Financial Times, The Art Newspaper, Houses, Grazia, OSMOS, Kerb Journal, Wallpaper*, Imagine Architecture, Dazed and Confused Magazine (Dazed), Nowness, Art Almanac, Artist Profile, The Saturday Paper, Hypebeast Magazine, The Monthly, Assemble Papers, Architecture AU, and Hyperallergic, among others. In 2017, ABC TV produced and released 'HOME: The Art of Ian Strange,' a six-part documentary series exploring Strange’s career and work.

Strange’s work is held in museum and institutional collections including the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), the Canterbury Museum, the State Library Victoria, the State Library of Queensland, FotoFocus, John Curtin University, CMC, MAC yapang, the City of Sydney, Wyndham City, the NGA Research Library Archives, and the Asia Pacific Design Library.

IAN STRANGE CV (PDF: Feb 2025)

'Making Dalison' short documentary

Nowness: Private View 'Ian Strange'

'Making Penumbra' short documentary (From AAC Exhibition)

TEDx Sydney, 2018 'The Home, Art, and Place'

'Making Final Act' (excerpt from 'HOME: The Art of Ian Strange' ABCTV series)

ABCTV: 'Home: The Art of Ian Strange' trailer

'DALISON' project website