Biography

Lachlan Stonehouse is an emerging artist represented by Five Walls Gallery whose practice investigates recurrence, pattern-making, and the controlled manipulation of surface. His paintings interrogate the fundamental conditions of the medium, with particular attention to the role of support structures in shaping visual and material outcomes. Central to this inquiry is the woven grid, which operates as both a material and conceptual device, generating optical rhythms and repetitive configurations that at times assume an almost mechanical quality. Stonehouse’s approach is informed by the legacies of Modernism, Minimalism, and Post-Minimalism, which he critically engages as methodological frameworks for the development of contemporary painting practices.

Stonehouse’s work is characterised by a sustained focus on the grid as a symbol of order, stability, and discipline, reflecting an ongoing pursuit of precision that is deliberately left unresolved. Through the integration of fabricated and hand-constructed processes, his paintings examine contemporary systems and modes of perception. The resulting works operate as meditations on compositional order and disruption, grounded in a nuanced engagement with materiality, paint application, and the physical support of the painted surface.

Colour plays a significant role within Stonehouse’s practice, where intuitive and spontaneous decision-making is carefully negotiated alongside systematic approaches. The woven grid functions as a perceptual framework that balances constructed and reconfigured elements, inviting close visual engagement. By acknowledging and incorporating error, Stonehouse disrupts the rigidity traditionally associated with the grid, challenging traditional modernist aesthetics and opening space for contingency, instability, and revision within an otherwise controlled visual language.

Born in Scottsdale, Tasmania, in 1999, Lachlan Stonehouse completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, graduating in 2023. He presented his debut solo exhibition at Five Walls Gallery in April 2024, followed by a two-person presentation alongside Emma Langridge at Sydney Contemporary in September 2024.

Stonehouse has exhibited widely in group exhibitions across Melbourne, including at Caves ARI, Blindside ARI, Oigall Projects, George Paton Gallery, the Centre for Contemporary Photography, and Arts Projects Australia. His work has also been shown in Tasmania at Sawtooth ARI and Poimena Gallery. In 2021, he was awarded the George Paton Gallery Artist Residency Award by the University of Melbourne, and in 2024 he received the University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Award of Excellence.

Stonehouse’s work is held in several public and corporate collections, including Macquarie Bank Group (NSW), Leeuwin Estate (WA), Justin House Museum (VIC), Winton Group (QLD), UMSU University of Melbourne, and the University of Melbourne, as well as in private collections across Australia and New Zealand.