Louise Forthun

Louise Forthun was born in Port Macquarie, New South Wales in 1959. After moving with her family to Melbourne in the late 1970s, Forthun attended RMIT and graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts (Painting). In 1987 the artist received a Graduate Diploma (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, and later in 2000 received her Master of Arts (Painting) from RMIT, Melbourne.

Forthun held her first solo exhibition with Pinacotheca, Melbourne in 1985. In 1987 Melbourne gallerist Georges Mora viewed her exhibition at the George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne and invited her to show with his gallery, Tolarno Galleries. Forthun has continued to show with Tolarno from that time. 

Selected group exhibitions Forthun’s work has been curated in include The Moet & Chandon Travelling Fellowship Exhibition, touring all state capitals(1989, 1990, 1992, 1993); The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (1992); Vibration, Beijing, Hanoi, Seoul, and Melbourne arranged by Asialink and the Art Gallery of Western Australia (1995 – 96); Fragments – Relation, Gallery Lunami, Tokyo, Japan (1997); Yoin – Reverberations Between Australia and Japan, Sagacho Exhibit Space, Tokyo and RMIT University Storey Hall Gallery, Melbourne (1998); National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery, Victoria (2000); Good Vibrations: The Legacy of Op Art in Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2002); Imants Tillers, John Nixon, Louise Forthun, Multiple Box, Sydney. In 2004 Forthun received an Australia Council residency at The British School at Rome.

The artist’s work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Artbank, Bendigo Art Gallery, Benalla Art Gallery, Monash University Collection, La Trobe University Collection, Deakin University Collection, and the Baillieu Myer Collection. Corporate collections that hold her work include CRA and BHP Billiton.