About
Torren Whisson (she/they) is a Perth-based multi-disciplinary artist. Her projects have captured her sensitive soul and search for personal identity through her turbulent upbringing. Exploring themes of sexual and gender identity, loss, childhood, and mental health, her creations are derived from multiple mediums including oils, acrylic, sculpture, glass, textiles, and print.
Whisson has developed a highly crafted set of skills to construct a complex synthesis of materials and narratives. She considers the relationships between positive space and her artistic subject matter through the duality of realism painting and delicacy of textiles and free-form sculptural work. Whisson’s art is riddled with symbolism to the highest degree, which she thoroughly enjoys to layer and subtly conceal throughout her works.
Torren Whisson has exhibited nationally and received multiple accolades for her works. At age fourteen, she was titled as a finalist in the Young Archie 2017 and exhibited in the Gallery of New South Wales. She went on to become a finalist in the Lester Prize 2019 and was later awarded a Summer Art Scholarship to the National Gallery of Australia (2019). She has been recognised by Shaun Tan as an emerging artist, through means of the Inaugural Shaun Tan Emerging Artist Award. She now continues to study Visual Arts at Edith Cowan University.
Education
2020 -
Edith Cowan University
2015 - 2019
Balcatta Senior High School
Awards
2022
2019
ECU Glass Design Prize, Perth
Inaugural Shaun Tan Emerging Artist Award, Perth
2019
2019
2019
Lester Prize Finalist, Perth
Outside the Frame: Textiles Excellence Award, Perth
National Art Gallery of Australia: National Summer Art Scholarship, Canberra
2018
2017
St. Georges Art Exhibition: Mixed Media & Textiles Award, Perth
Young Archibald Finalist, Sydney
Exhibitions
Group
2022
ECU ArtsHum Exhibiton, Edith Cowan University
2021
ECU ArtsHum Exhibition, Edith Cowan University
2021
Juniper: an evergreen art show, Ellis House Art Centre
2020
ECU ArtsHum Exhibition, Edith Cowan University
2019
Gifted & Talented Visual Art Exhibition, Balcatta Senior High School
2019
The Lester Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of Western Australia
2019
Art Awards Exhibition, City of Stirling
2019
2019
Outside the Frame Art Awards Exhibition, Armadale District Hall
17th Annual St. Georges Art Exhibition, St. Georges Cathedral
2018
Gifted & Talented Visual Art Exhibition, Balcatta Senior High School
2018
META Annual Art & Design Exhibition for Senior Secondary School Students, North Metropolitan Tafe
2018
16th Annual St. Georges Art Exhibition, St. Georges Cathedral
2017
Gifted & Talented Visual Art Exhibition, Balcatta Senior High School
2017
Young Originals Exhibition, Edith Cowan University
2021
Archibald Prize, Gallery of New South Wales
2020
Hypervision Exhibition & Competition, Midland Junction Arts Centre
2017
Comet Bay College ANZAC Service Exhibition, Comet Bay College
2017
62 Faces, YMCA HQ Gallery