Luke Thurgate is an artist and educator who joined the team at Adelaide Central School of Art in 2014. He studied at the University of Newcastle, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2007. He is currently completing a Master of Fine Art (Drawing) at the National Art School.

Luke moved to Adelaide in 2011 to take up a position as Coordinator of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Art Gallery of South Australia. He has a broad range of programming and teaching experience, having developed and delivered workshops, professional development seminars and masterclasses for Newcastle Art Gallery, the NSW Department of Education and Training, Art Gallery of South Australia, and the National Art School.

Luke’s studio practice reappropriates cultural signifiers used in the construction and deconstruction of identity. He is interested in a range of tensions that exist in contemporary figurative art making and explores these through sculptures, paintings and drawings. His work references masculinity, violence, romance and death.

Luke has exhibited extensively in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. He was the inaugural artist in residence at Burra Regional Art Gallery and has also done residences at Seymour College and Art Lab Australia. He has been a finalist in numerous art prizes including the 2020 Tom Bass Figurative Sculpture Prize, the 2019 Dobell Drawing Prize and the 2017 Whyalla Art Prize. Luke works out of Switchboard Studios and is represented by .M Contemporary in Sydney.

Visit his website here.