Madison Bycroft

Madison Bycroft was born in 1987 in Adelaide (AU), they live and work in Rotterdam (NL) and Adelaide (AU).

Madison Bycroft works with video, performance, sculpture, sound, and text in their artistic practice. They explore animist and linguistic methodologies to approach, become accustomed to, invoke, and be with the unknown. They are particularly interested in the fine line between closed (reductive) and open (permissive) speech. What practical possibilities arise from the mystical language of the elusive? How can the middle way—between active and passive—be reinstated in discourse and action in a way that strengthens the queer identity of the subject, making it plural? How can one translate without capturing? Bycroft performs different selves and questions the idea of a singular subject as the author of their actions, instead moving towards a fluid multiplicity.

Madison Bycroft graduated from the Piet Zwart Institute of Fine Arts in Rotterdam, where they were awarded the Anne & Gordon Samstag scholarship. Since 2016, they have co-directed GHOST with Natalia Sorzano and Kari Robertson, a platform for collaboration and facilitation.

Bycroft’s recent Australian exhibitions include CatDog at Greenaway Gallery, Primavera: Young Australian Artists at the MCA in Sydney, Synonyms for Savages at The Australian Experimental Art Foundation, and It Division at the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia. Their international exhibitions include Creatures of the Mud at Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster, Translating Medea at Yellow Brick in Athens, The Blue Grey Wall at Physics Room in Christchurch, and an exhibition at Microscope Gallery during their residency at ISCP in Brooklyn, New York.