Tia Madden (b.1999) is an artist and writer based on Dharug land in the Blue Mountains. Her practice is concerned with the overlaps between drawing and writing, the poetics of illegibility, and the potential for abstract marks to behave communicatively when framed - or misread - as language. Through expanded drawing and installation, Madden explores language as a physical material and a spatial form, constructing spaces that are generative, poetic, and resist fixed interpretation. Her work calls on the speculative-fictional and archaeological to create and activate ‘uncoded forms’: signs not-yet or no-longer tied to a language system.
Performing fictions, Madden’s installations are speculative linguistic architectures - skeletons of language that she asks to act as vessels for communication, even if they only speak in worlds outside our own. Her work offers a space where meaning remains open-ended, indeterminate and resistant to control. Aligning with critical discussions on how meaning is formed, distorted or artificially imposed, she asks viewers to confront the possibility that language is temporary, unstable, and vulnerable to manipulation. In doing so, she looks to challenge the authority of interpretation, unsettling our ideas of how, where, and when meaning dwells in human-made marks.
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Madden graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2022, and is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Arts by Research at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture, examining the mutability of meaning at the intersection of drawing and writing. In 2023 she was selected for a one-month artist residency in Cairo, Egypt, which was supported by a grant from the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. This residency informed her first solo exhibition, Some Sort of Notation, which was held at Firstdraft in 2024. As well as exhibiting widely, Madden was the winner of the 2024 Kudos Emerging Artist Award, was awarded highly commended in both the 2023 Gosford Art Prize and the 2023 Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, has been featured as a finalist in various prizes including the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) and the M16 Drawing Prize, and is one of eight finalists in Gosford Regional Gallery’s Gosford Emerging 2025.
Current
Assistant Curator at Penrith Regional Gallery
Master of Fine Arts (Research) Candidate, University of New South Wales Arts, Design & Architecture
Education
2024 - 2026, Master of Fine Arts by Research, University of New South Wales Arts, Design & Architecture
2019 - 2022, Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), University of New South Wales Arts, Design & Architecture
Residencies
2023, Out of the Circle Artist Residency, Cairo, Egypt
2023, Ancher Points: Emerging Artists Intensive, Penrith Regional Gallery, Emu Plains, NSW
Solo Exhibitions
2024 - 2025, Some Sort of Notation, Firstdraft, Woolloomooloo, NSW
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024, Torsion, Luna Studio, Newtown, NSW - curated by Yazmeen Meedin
2024, A Message to the Future, a Note from the Past, Airspace Projects, Marrickville, NSW
2024, Twelvefold, Penrith Regional Gallery, Emu Plains, NSW
2023, Falak Gallery, Garden City, Cairo, Egypt
2023, Luft, Mounted ARI, Springwood, NSW
2023, Beyond the Dream, Comber St. Studios, Paddington, NSW - curated by Elaine Kim
2023, Cast, Mounted ARI, Springwood, NSW (curatorial)
2023, In Flux: Liminal Longing, Comber St. Studios, Paddington, NSW - curated by Fiona Macpherson
2022, The Annual, UNSW Galleries, Paddington, NSW
2022, Encompassment, ADSpace, Paddington, NSW
2022, The Other Art Fair, The Cutaway, Barangaroo, Sydney, NSW
2021 - 2022, Birdland, Blue Mountains Heritage Centre, Blackheath, NSW
2021, The Annual, UNSW Galleries, Paddington, NSW
2021, Pulse, ADSpace, Paddington, NSW
Grants, Awards & Prizes
2025, Finalist - Gosford Emerging 2025, Gosford Regional Gallery, NSW
2025, Finalist - St. Columbas Art Prize, Springwood, NSW
2024, Winner - Kudos Emerging Artist Awards, Sydney, NSW
2024, Finalist - Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA), Grafton Regional Gallery, Grafton, NSW
2024, Finalist - Kudos Emerging Writer Awards, Sydney, NSW
2024, Finalist - Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, Paddington, NSW
2024, Recipient - University Postgraduate Award & Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship
2023, Recipient - Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant
2023, Finalist - M16 Drawing Prize, M16 Artspace, Griffith, ACT
2023, Highly Commended - Lloyd Rees Emerging Artist Awards, Gallery Lane Cove, Lane Cove, NSW
2023, Highly Commended - Gosford Art Prize, Gosford Regional Gallery, Gosford, NSW
2023, Highly Commended - Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, Adelaide Perry Gallery, Croydon, NSW
2022, Finalist - Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, Paddington, NSW
2022, Winner - The Other Art Fair New Futures, Sydney, NSW
2022, Finalist - Jenny Birt Painting Prize, Paddington, NSW
2021, Finalist - Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, Paddington, NSW
Authored Writing
2024, a red disk swimming in a blue sea in Framework issue no. 42
2024, Misreading Mis/reading in Framework issue no. 40
2023, A Disproportionate Subtitle in Cast
Bibliography
2024, Drawing Language, catalogue essay by Nina Stromqvist
2024, Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award 2024, Grafton Regional Gallery publication
2024, Obscured by Darkness, Revealed by Light, catalogue essay by Rose Dolenec Hannan
2023, Grantee Feature - Tia Madden, Ian Potter Cultural Trust
Curatorial
2023, Cast, Mounted ARI, Springwood
Collections
Private collections throughout Australia
Training
2023, Coppersmithing Short Course, Noqoush Academy of Art, Cairo, Egypt