Joshua Di Mattina-Beven
Selected Work
Tussle
Wrestleclub
Listing, Wishing
Handkerchief
Up Your Ass
Ditty4Duo
About
CV
Tussle is an ongoing sculptural and choreographic project exploring the queer entanglements of wrestling. Composed of an installation, live performance and multichannel video, Tussle explores the presence of bodies across mediums. The project works collaboratively with artists and non-performers to draw out the possibilities of intimacy through movement. At once adolescent, sensual, platonic and violent – Tussle oscillates between encounters to create a shifting organism of inter/action. The changing room is the stage for these performative encounters. Here the remains of clothing point to what was or is to come.
Judges of the Ross Steele Fine Art Prize Dr Prue Gibson (Lecturer, School of Art & Design) and Dr Gerwyn Davies (Associate Lecturer, School of Art & Design) described Tussle as elegant, confident and dynamic, offering a poetic representation of the complex relations in the world today through intimacy, play and tension.
“The ability to resolve the documentation and presence of a performance work through video and sculpture, allowing for an artwork to linger through what is both present and absence, is particularly commendable,” the judges said. “The installations ask questions that exist outside of the performance while also luring the viewers into wanting more.
“A mesmerising artwork in every way.”
Tussle, live performance [1 hour], installation [changing room bench, clothes] and multichannel video [5 minutes].
Special thanks to performers Robyn, Charlie, Rowan, Lachie, Astrid, Peti, Oli, Kumiko, Alice, Charlie, Ashley, Laura, Nikau, Ruben, Jy, Nicole and Zie for their trust and contribution to Tussle over the years.
Presented at:
Emerging 2025, Gosford Regional Gallery, 2025
Annual Degree Show, UNSW, 2024
Kudos Awards, Kudos Gallery, 2024
Open Studios, UNSW, 2024
Material Matters, Glasgow School of Art, 2023