Nathan Beard

Cicerone (x) new work whipped up for @westspace for their annual fundraiser Labour & Love. Now more than ever support orgs with a spine. Link in bio.

Thrilled to share that Gnash is a finalist in this year’s Wynne Prize. Looking forward to celebrating the incredible lineup of artists at the opening next week. Coincidentally here are some pictures of my beloved Mae Khong smiling without her dentures. Photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales @futures_gallery @artgalleryofnsw

Details of Phuang Malai (2025), my commissioned work for In Bloom at the National Portrait Gallery repurposing my mother’s wedding band, an intimidating object embedded with layers of meaning. Many thanks to curator Serena Bentley for the opportunity and this significant platform which allowed the work to reach such a broad audience over a generous exhibition period. Incredibly grateful to Kiana Jones for lending her skill and expertise to this commission to give proper reverence to this heirloom. @portraitau @legoflamb1 @freakmofx @futures_gallery

2026 Adelaide Biennial artist Nathan Beard's work draws from his Australian-Thai heritage to unpack the porous and precarious influences which shape the commercial and historical production of culture. Beard’s work explores forms and references which intersect family history, archives and broad signifiers of ‘Thainess’. Through the collision of these interests, his work speaks to the complexities surrounding authenticity and diasporic identity. See Nathan Beard's work on display at both the Art Gallery of South Australia and Samstag Museum of Art as part of the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength until 8 June 2026. 📸 1. Henry Trumble, 2-4. Saul Steed.

In Bloom at the National Portrait Gallery closes this week on the 19 April, featuring a range of recent works as well as a newly commissioned sculpture 🌸 Screenshots from an In Conversation here with curator Serena Bentley, which is viewable in the link in my bio (also a tile for a workshop on wearable identities which is also viewable on the NPG website hehe) My mum would’ve been stoked to see a portrait of her hanging next to the queen! Squint and you can see it in the first image. @legoflamb1 @portraitau @futures_gallery @a_v_a.gallery

From Sophie Rose’s delicious catalogue text on Prudence Flint and moi for the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength curated by Ellie Buttrose. ‘In the contemporary fantasy, Thailand exists as an ancient land and a luxury tourist destination, a place to detox and a place to party. Beard lays these contradictions bare, with, for example, a fake nail covered in Siam red crystals pushing against a replica Buddha. The artist has described his process as a form of autoethnography – a practice that combines supposedly distanced observation and the ‘data’ of one’s lived experience, calling the researcher to look both upon and within. As auto-ethnographer, the artist acts as a winking tour guide, or ‘cicerone’, to use the title of his 2025 Gertrude Contemporary exhibition. The auto-cicerone tours through the landmarks of their own heritage, stopping at well-trodden cultural tropes while moving past political or economic realities. However, there is a second segment of Beard’s installation, when ‘Thai-ness’ is stripped away, leaving only cloned, limp phalanges and the after-image of cultural fetish. Now, we approach literal, sexual fetish, as the artist’s surrogate hands appear like silicone sex toys, made to fist and finger.’ An inspired pairing! Thrilling to have the latent eroticism charging this silicone work be written about so clearly but buy the catalogue to read more. It’s sexy, comfy, cheeky and smart - other catalogues could never. @_sophie_r.ose @elliebuttrose 1. Portrait of myself in the Ciceroni installation at @agsa.adelaide taken by Henry Trumble 2. Detail of Ciceroni photographed by Saul Steed 3. Catalogue with hand for scale

Video detail of some of the long arm prosthetics I made, and their cinematic counterpart in 2013’s horror comedy Pee Mak. If Thailand has a ‘national ghost’ it would be Mae Nak Phra Khanong, and the practical effects from this subversive retelling of this folk story lent a material framework for the new work made for Ciceroni. On display at Art Gallery of South Australia as part of the 2026 Adelaide Biennial: Yield Strength, curated by total rockstar Ellie Buttrose. @agsa.adelaide @elliebuttrose @futures_gallery @a_v_a.gallery

OFFSITE: Nathan Beard features in the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength, curated by Ellie Buttrose, which opens this Friday, 27th February. For the Biennial, Nathan has realised two ambitious new installations, Cicerone and Ciceroni, comprising multiple sculptures and a video work, presented across the Samstag Museum of Art and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Cast from the artist’s own hands, Nathan’s sculptures twist, caress and extend into uncanny forms both theatrical and uncanny. Assembling signifiers of ‘Thainess’ — from Buddha and doll heads to fruit, fashion and family memory — the works move between the sacred, commercial and personal. Elongated fingers and limbs slip between seduction and horror, exaggerated forms invoking the broad plasticity of culture haunted by visual references to folklore and the popular Thai ghost Mae Nak. Suspended between devotion and fetish, Nathan’s installation confronts how culture is staged, consumed and regurgitated. —— Yield Strength reveals how materials, selfhood and society are tested - and transformed - under pressure. Twenty-four artists push their mediums to build visual complexity, or contort them to convey the curious side of existence. Remaining attentive to aesthetic details and receptive to the intricacies of life, the exhibition fosters intimacy through layered viewing experiences across the Art Gallery of South Australia, Samstag Museum of Art and Adelaide Botanic Garden. The 2026 Adelaide Biennial features new works by Robert Andrew, Nathan Beard, Lauren Burrow, Francis Carmody, Mark Maurangi Carrol, Milminyina Dhamarrandji, Matthew Teapot Djipurrtjun, George Egerton-Warburton, Prudence Flint, Brian Fuata, d harding, Matthew Harris, Helen Johnson, Kirtika Kain, Jennifer Mathews, Archie Moore, Josina Pumani, Julie Nangala Robertson, Erika Scott, Joel Sherwood Spring, Charlie Sofo, John Spiteri, Isadora Vaughan and Emmaline Zanelli. @nathansbeard @futures_gallery @a_v_a.gallery @agsa.adelaide Artwork details: Untitled (Ciceroni), 2025-2026, painted silicone, foam, 275 L x 16 w x 10.5 H cm (dimensions variable). Unique. Photos by Brodie Kokkinos.

Preview of new work in the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength, opening tomorrow night at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Thrilled to have been invited by Ellie Buttrose to push myself over these last few months and the show she’s cooked up is incredible. Pinching myself that I get to be a part of it. Congratulations to everyone, I can’t wait for people to see it. New work also debuting at Samstag Museum of Art which opens this Friday. Huge thank you to Lucian @r.luvell for scanning this overpriced Disney souvenir for me and to Brodie @brunette_supremacy for her amazing studio shots 🙏🏻 @agsa.adelaide @elliebuttrose @samstagmuseum @futures_gallery @a_v_a.gallery

One week til the 2026 Adelaide Biennial: Yield Strength merch drops

It was this audio track or a 90 second loop of Judi Dench saying ‘you’re not YOUNG’

Figure 3: Siamese Smile, Thailand 1970-75 has been donated to the Art for Aid exhibition organised by @perth_doctors_for_palestine , a fundraising event to raise much needed funds for medical and humanitarian aid in Gaza. Saturday 25 October 2025, 6–9pm Holmes à Court Gallery @ no. 10 Ticket link in bio. The exhibition will also be open to the public on Sunday 26 October, 10am to 5pm, with interactive activities and opportunities to learn about Palestinian culture. All proceeds going to Perth Doctors Medical Aid for Palestine working with registered charities: @panzma__ PANZMA (Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association) @thepcrf PCRF (Palestine Children’s Relief Fund) @childrennotnumbers   Children Not Numbers  Art for Aid cover artwork: @luisahansal Figure 3. Siamese Smile, Thailand 1970-75 2018 Digital print on Canson Rag Photographique 310gsm, printed acrylic, Swarovski Elements 36.5 x 49.5 x 4cm 📷 @b_o_w_o_n_g 💎💎 @a_v_a.gallery 💎💎