JOSHUA BONSON SKIN MOVING THROUGH MONOCHROME
2 - 23 August 2025
INTRODUCTION.
Art Leven is proud to present SKIN – Moving through Monochrome, a bold new body of work by Torres Strait Islander artist Joshua Bonson. This exhibition marks a significant evolution in Bonson’s practice, his first major series since relocating from Darwin to Cairns to work full time as an artist. With this personal and professional shift comes a visual transformation: a move into a monochromatic palette that strips away colour to focus on form, texture, and the emotional resonance of light and shadow.
At the core of SKIN is Bonson’s totem, the Saltwater Crocodile, a powerful symbol of identity, heritage, and place. His works have long explored the reptile’s protective skin as a metaphor for ancestral strength, kinship, and cultural memory. In this series, that imagery is reinterpreted through dynamic compositions rendered in black and white. These works feel elemental and raw, yet deeply refined, inviting viewers into an intimate dialogue with Bonson’s cultural and personal landscape.
Using palette knives, brushes, and his hands, Bonson builds tactile surfaces that seem to breathe with energy. The scale-like markings, layered textures, and flowing forms speak to Country and sea, to memory and movement. Though abstract in appearance, each work holds specific meaning: they are meditations on belonging, portraits of family ties, and stories that transcend language.
Bonson’s shift to monochrome also signals a deeper engagement with spirit. The absence of colour allows space for reflection, for both artist and audience. Light becomes a medium in itself, animating each work as it moves across the surface, revealing subtle shifts in tone, depth, and emotion.
SKIN – Moving through Monochrome is an exhibition of reconnection and renewal. It reflects Bonson’s willingness to embrace change, to honour the past while exploring new visual and personal territories.
In this remarkable series, Bonson invites us to slow down, to look closely, and to feel, offering a space of openness and quiet power. Each work is a window into his journey, but also a mirror, one that reflects our own capacity for connection, transformation, and story.
- Moving through Monochrome, 2025
x 32 cm
$900 | Framed: $1,100
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN
acrylic on canvas
32
#23375
ARTIST STATEMENT. Joshua Bonson
SKIN – Moving through Monochrome showcases my totem, the Saltwater Crocodile, and the land we come from: the Northern Territory, the Torres Strait, and Far North Queensland. This emotional and meaningful body of work is teeming with texture and exuberant detail, while touching on themes of identity, belonging, enduring connection to place, and cultural roots.
This exhibition portrays my love of Country, which is the inspiration for the show. These are the first works I’ve created since deciding to leave Darwin, after living there all my life, and relocating to Cairns, Far North Queensland, to finally work full time as an artist in my own studio. It marks a pivotal chapter in my life and artistic practice, a life of change, risk, new ideas, discovery, excitement, and reconnection to Country and family.
To describe how I feel is simply: altering, developing, dynamic, and transitional. The use of black and white signals a shift to a more spiritual context, concentrating on the way light and shadow fall across the surface, manipulating light, space, and hue. The result is freeing. Without the complexities of colour, the focus is on the visual languages of shape, form, and line, while I experiment with texture, mark-making, and symbolic meaning. It’s fascinating how shades of black and white evoke such powerful emotion while embracing simplicity and beauty within.
SKIN portrays my totem, the Saltwater Crocodile; my ancestors; and the oceans and land from where I come. Strong passion and deliberate design run throughout the completed works, focusing the viewer’s attention on subject, concept, and technique.
The Saltwater Crocodile’s scaly cover, up close and personal, brings the viewer into such proximity that they can see each individual scale, texturally rendered for close scrutiny. Its armoured skin is built up with serrations of paint, creating a sense of flow and scaled perfection, applied layer by layer with brushes, palette knives, and bare hands, generously floating on watery surfaces. I want the viewer to feel the presence of the reptile, run their hands across its skin.
My work captures the essence of the reptile’s natural casing through a unique painterly style that is largely monochromatic and abstractly expressionistic. The crocodile’s scales, as my personal totem, also reflect the landscape, seen both from a great distance and up close, as if they are rocks, water, and sand: a terrain drawn from both the Northern Territory, where I was born, and the Torres Strait, where I root my heritage.
This close-up investigation of scaly skin becomes my way of expressing the affiliations that define my own. By bringing the viewer face-to-face with the Saltwater Crocodile’s skin, I enable them to witness its strength, and to see the Country it comes from, where I come from too.
Heritage guides the story captured here, a personal story. A portrayal of uniqueness, solidarity, and an acknowledgement of bloodlines.
Dwell in my cultural mind space and enjoy an artistic close encounter with the reptilian kind, embracing the simplicity and the beauty within.
23360
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
122 x 122 cm
$7,000 | Framed; $7,500
40.5 x 30.5 cm
23372
$1, 500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on board
- Moving through Monochrome, 2025
42 x 32 cm
23374
$1,500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN
acrylic on canvas
23382
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
123 x 91 cm
20665
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - My Totem, 2023
acrylic on canvas
126 x 96 cm
23377
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
123 x 91 cm
51 x 41 cm
23366
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
on canvas
51 x 41 cm
23368
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA BONSON
acrylic
51 x 41 cm
23369
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
on canvas
51 x 41 cm
23362
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA BONSON
acrylic
23381
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
123 x 91 cm
51 x 41 cm
23364
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
51 x 41 cm
23365
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA BONSON
40.5 x 30.5 cm
23370
$1, 500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on board
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
40.5 x 30.5 cm
23371
$1, 500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA BONSON
acrylic on board
23376
$2,200 | Framed: $2,400
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
52 x 42 cm
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
on board
51 x 41 cm
23385
$2,200 | Framed: $2,300
JOSHUA BONSON
acrylic
40.5 x 30.5 cm
23383
$1,500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on board
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
on board
40.5 x 30.5 cm
23384
$1,500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA BONSON
acrylic
23363
$7,000 | Framed: $7,500
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
122 x 122 cm
23378
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
123 x 91 cm
23379
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
123 x 91 cm
23380
$5,500 | Framed: $6,000
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on canvas
123 x 91 cm
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome (octet), 2025
15 x 15 cm (each); 30 x 60 cm (overall)
23386
Framed: $2,500
JOSHUA BONSON
acrylic on canvas
18593
$5,000 | Framed: $5,500
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Inspiration, 2020
acrylic on canvas
120 x 100 cm
40.5 x 30.5 cm
23373
$1, 500 | Framed: $1,600
JOSHUA
JOSHUA BONSON
SKIN - Moving through Monochrome, 2025
acrylic on board
ARTIST CV & BIO. JOSHUA BONSON
Born | 1988
Country | Jawoyn & Kala Lagaw Ya
Region | Torres Strait Islands & Far North Queensland
‘In our culture, there is a connection between people and families; kinship that can’t be described or translated in English. I capture those ties in my works, with my markings and the strokes of the brush.
My heritage guides the stories captured. Textured streaks of acrylic create an element of flow, scaled perfection, they tell a personal story .... a portrayal of uniqueness, solidarity, and an acknowledgement of bloodlines.’ Joshua Bonson
COMMISSIONS
TOGA Group PTY LTD
TOGA Group Vibe Hotel, Germany
Rydges Hotel, Palmerston, NT
University of Sydney AMMRF – University Collection COX Architects, Canberra, ACT
AWARDS + GRANTS
2020 FINALIST The Alice Prize, NT
2015 Scholarship at Bundanon Trust Artist Retreat, NSW
2015 FINALIST Churchie Art Award, Brisbane, QLD
2014 WINNER Young Achievers Award NT
WINNER Young Achievers Award NT - Artist of the year
2013 WINNER Top End NAIDOC Artist of the Year
2013 FINALIST City of Albany Contemporary Art Prize, WA
2013 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, NT
2011 WINNER TOGART Contemporary Art Award, NT
2008 25th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, NT
2007 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, NT
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 Standing In My Ancestors Footsteps, Cooee Art Leven
2021 To Connect - To Open Windows, Cooee Art Gallery, Redfern, NSW 2018
2018 SKIN, Cooee Art Gallery, Paddington, NSW
2014 SKIN, ReDot Fine Art Gallery, Singapore
2013 SKIN, 24hour Art, Darwin, NT
2012 SKIN, Harvison Gallery, Perth, WA
2011 SKIN, Harvison Gallery, Perth, WA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 WHO X WHO, Art Leven, NSW
2022 Paul Johnstone Gallery Darwin NT
2021 NOTFAIR 2021 Melbourne, VIC
2020 Sydney Contemporary 2020, Cooee Gallery, NSW
Finalist: The Alice Prize, NT
20/20 Group exhibition – 20 Artists from across Australia 2020 – Cooee Gallery NSW
2019 Sydney Contemporary, NSW Cooee Gallery
Light, Bright and White , Cooee Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2018 Connections Exhibition: - Power House Museum, Sydney, NSW
Garrmalang Festival Darwin, Group Exhibition, Darwin
Entertainment Centre, NT 2015 Churchie Art Award, Brisbane, QLD
2014 135th Meridian East, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Lion Arts Centre, SA
2013 Finalist: 30th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award - NT
2013 City of Albany Art Prize, Albany, WA
2013 Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Lion Arts Centre, Adelaide, SA
2011 Winner: Togart Contemporary Art Award, Darwin, NT
2010 Melbourne Art Fair, VIC KBG
2008 Finalist: 25th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award – NT
2007 Finalist: 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award – NT
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth, WA
TOGA Contemporary Art Collection Australia & Berlin
Art Bank Collection, Sydney, NSW
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Perth, WA
H.M & R.A Horton Collection, QLD & New Zealand / Art Gallery of NSW Somerville Community Services Inc Collection. NT
Arthur Roe Collection, Vic
Wheelock Properties Collection, Singapore
Varga / Coombs Collection, NSW
Peter Cooke Collection, QLD
Churchie Collection, Brisbane, QLD
The Owen and Wagner Collection / Hood Museum of Art
