Yuriyal Eric Bridgeman is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Australia and Papua New Guinea who graduated from the Queensland College of Art. He works in photographic portraiture, video, sculpture, installation, drawing, and painting.
Bridgeman’s photographic and new media works can be positioned in social commentary and portraiture; his painting practice is strongly influenced by his connection to men’s practices of his tribe, Yuri Alaiku of the Simbu province of PNG, in the form of shield paintings. He co-founded the artist collective Haus Yuriyal (Jiwaka, PNG) with his family members, in which he serves the role as artist and facilitator of the group’s contemporary art projects.
Bridgeman’s works in Trace are a series of three drawings each titled 99(Night Night) using pencil, crayon and oil pastel on paper. They are part of his work that taps into the energy of the fusion of rugby league and Papuan New Guinea culture, which Bridgeman says ‘is sweetly entangled with an excitement for conflict, bilas (costume), (and) hyper-masculinity …’
Bridgeman has exhibited at Carriageworks, Sydney and Home of the Arts Gold Coast 2022, 22nd Sydney Biennale 2020, The National New Australian Art 2019, University of Queensland Art Museum, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne 2017, Queensland Art Gallery 2016, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Museum of Contemporary Art 2011.
His work is in the collections of Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, University of Queensland Art Museum, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane.
