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Overview
Born and raised in Newcastle, Drinkwater studied at the National Art School in Sydney (2001) before embarking on a prolific career marked by curiosity, experimentation, and a deep engagement with materiality and gesture.
Since his first solo exhibition in 2004, Drinkwater has presented more than thirty solo shows across Australia and abroad. In 2019, his work was the subject of a major survey exhibition, ‘The Sea Calls Me by Name’, at the Newcastle Art Gallery — a celebration of his enduring relationship with the coastal landscapes and communities that continue to inform his art.
Drinkwater’s practice extends beyond the studio, embracing collaboration across disciplines. In 2016, he was commissioned by Monash University’s Engineering Faculty to create a fifteen-metre sculptural relief, now permanently installed at the university’s Clayton Campus. The following year, he partnered with Australian fashion house ALPHA60 to develop a capsule collection that translated his painterly language into textile form.
In 2022, Drinkwater’s work was included in ‘Singing In Unison – Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy’, a landmark exhibition curated by Phong H. Bui and Cal McKeever for ‘The Brooklyn Rail’. Exhibited alongside artists such as Sean Scully, Julian Schnabel, Lauren Bon, Ron Gorchov, and Dorothea Rockburne, this inclusion affirmed his position within a broader international dialogue. That same year, he collaborated with choreographers Skip Willcox and Belle Beasely and composer Joseph Franklin on ‘Storm Approaching Wangi – and Other Desires’, a contemporary ballet commissioned by the Multi Arts Pavilion, MIMA Lake Macquarie, for which Drinkwater designed sets and costumes and performed in the final scene.
In 2023, his mid-career was marked by two major survey exhibitions: ‘Passage’ at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA) in Darwin, and ‘At Mid Career’ at the Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, curated by Terence Maloon.
Drinkwater’s work has been exhibited in group shows throughout Australia and internationally, including in Berlin, Leipzig, New York, and London. He has received numerous accolades, including the Marten Bequest Scholarship (2011), the Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship (2014), and the John Olsen National Art School Life Drawing Prize (2002), and has been a finalist multiple times in major national prizes such as the Wynne Prize, Sulman Prize, and Dobell Drawing Prize.
James has undertaken international residencies in Leipzig, Titjikala, Kenya, Paris, Tahiti and Ubud; experiences that have infused his work with a rich sense of movement and place. His works are held in a number of significant public and private collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, HOTA Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Artbank, Macquarie Bank, Monash University, and the Schnabel Collection, New York, among others. Most recently, his work ‘Sunday in Albi’ was acquired by The Blanca and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza collection for the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.
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Biography
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025. Anchored by the Sun, Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney
2025. Kick Hard off the Ocean Floor, Edwina Corlette Gallery
2024. Child at the Met and other Journals, Nicholas Thompson Gallery at Melbourne Art Fair
2024. École des Arts - Somewhere just outside Toulouse, Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney
2024. Somewhere Between the Sea and the Table, Vigo Gallery, Wellington Arch Museum, London
2024. Fronte Oceano, Aotearoa Art Fair, New Zealand, (Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney)
2023. AMERICAN SALT – Montauk to the Bowery, Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney
2023. At Mid Career, Survey Exhibition, The Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National
University, Canberra
2023. At Mid Career, Survey Exhibition, The Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra
2023. Dobell’s storm, an exhibition of Sets, Costumes and media from the ballet, MAC Museum, Lake Macquarie
2023. Passage, Survey Exhibition, NCCA Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin
2023. You could just make a painting and write it all in there, Edwina Corlette, Brisbane
2022. Sand drawings and other tropes, Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne
2022. Tesoro Mio, Nanda/Hobbs, Sydney
2022. The Boxer, round 2 / Old photos make me cry, Newcastle University Gallery, Newcastle
2021. I love you so much I can’t stop saying goodbye, Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne
2021. The Boxer/When I was younger I said my prayers, Nanda/Hobbs, Sydney
2020. I love you more than paintings, Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne
2020. A day by the sea, Informality - Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, UK
2019. I love you to pieces then back together again, Nanda/Hobbs, Sydney Contemporary
2019. The Sea Calls Me by Name, 10 year survey, Newcastle Art Gallery
2018. Looking for Urchins and Louis Ferrari, Nanda/Hobbs, Sydney
2017. In the Halls of my Youth, The LockUp, Newcastle
2017. Rungli Rungliot, Australian High Commission, Singapore
2016. An entire life, from the interior, NKN Gallery, Melbourne
2016. We are clumsy now on this Southern Beach, New works from the South of France, Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney
2015. Every Pigeon in Paris became a Dove, New work from Paris, Peta O’Brien Contemporary Art, London 2015. In the Arms of Moreton Figs, Gallery 9, Sydney
2014. The boy cried STORM!!! NKN Gallery, Melbourne
2014. The boy and the ballet, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
2012. The Ocean Parade, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
2012. Home Stretch, Cooks Hill Galleries, Newcastle
2011. Nostalgia for Nothing, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
2010. Brooding Town, Iain Dawson Gallery, Sydney
2010. Postage Paid Australia, Berlin, Cooks Hill Galleries, Newcastle
2009. Poor Boy, Fortyfive Downstairs, Melbourne
2004. New Paintings, Maunsell Wickes, Sydney
2004. Vintage, Damien Minton Gallery, Newcastle
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025. Stab a Painting with a Sculpture, Braddon Snape Collaboration, Straightjacket Artspace, Newcastle, NSW
2024. Armory Show, New York, Vigo Gallery (London, UK) Rue de Fleurus, George Benias Gallery, Athens, 2024. Greece A Dream about a Horse, Vito Gallery, London, UK Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney Contemporary
2023. Untitled Miami, Vigo Gallery (London, UK)
2022. Singing in unison - Curated by Phong H. Bui and Cal McKeever. Brooklyn, New York.
2019. Post cards from twin peaks, Paul Ryan and James Drinkwater
2018. Black Diamond Money, Byron School of Arts
2018. Couplings, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney
2018. Sweetness of The New, The Yellow House Gallery, curated by Stepping into Tomorrow
2017. Works on paper, Beers Gallery London
2017. Sydney Art Fair, Nanda Hobbs Gallery
2017. Spring Art fair 1883, NKN Gallery
2017. Into Abstraction II, Macquarie University Gallery
2014. Paperweight, Newcastle Art Gallery
2013. Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Damien Minton Gallery
2013. Working Newcastle, University of Newcastle
2013. Marked, Cessnock Regional Art Gallery
2012. Young Collectors, John Buckley Gallery Melbourne
2012. Traces, Leipzig Art Fair, Germany
2012. The Great Australian Landscape, Tim Olsen Gallery
2010. A Perfect Day to Chase Tornados (White), Berlin
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Artbank
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Allens Law Firm
Bendigo Art Gallery
HOTA Gold Coast
MRAG
Macquarie Bank
Macquarie University
Monash University
Newcastle Art Gallery
Schnable Collection New York
Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid, Spain
University of Newcastle
Warner Music Australia
