Atchison has exhibited widely in solo, curated and group exhibitions both locally and internationally and has produced several public art projects, including a City of Melbourne public art commission in 2013. He is a qualified teacher and since 2016 has held the position of Artist Educator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. He is currently in the final stages of candidature in the Master of Fine Art program at Monash Art Design and Architecture.
Statue/Lens Piece
Andrew Atchison’s Test Sites project ‘Statue/Lens Piece’ saw the artist place several acrylic ‘lenses’ around an existing statue of Charles La Trobe, outside the State Library of Victoria, with the aim of evoking multiple perspectives onto the subject.
Atchison sought to critique how these monuments characterise space, and test to what extent contemporary Melburnians identify, or not, with statues of historical figures. Through an experimental, non-invasive socio-sculptural intervention, the artist investigated how, through queer formal and conceptual annotation of the Charles La Trobe stature, the diversity of individual perspectives present within surrounding spaces might be represented visually.
Atchison found that the project really opened up when testing. On a formal level, Atchison was surprised by the change in scale when the large acrylic discs he used were placed in the open setting. They were much diminished and this led him to consider how to scale-up the materials used. Conceptually the idea seemed very straight forward, however during the test, many unexpected effects became apparent. In particular it was very useful to have peers and members of the public comment on the piece and ask the artist to explain exactly what it was it was trying to do.
He states that 'the way that people were attracted to and curious about the piece was surprising and I am now interested in researching further the kind of choreography that public artworks can create through traffic flows driven by attraction and curiosity.