Eric Bridgeman was born 1986 in Redcliffe, Queensland, and lives and works in Brisbane, Australia and Wahgi Valley, Jiwaka Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Bridgeman is a multidisciplinary artist, based in Australia and Papua New Guinea, working with photography, painting, installation, video and performance in a variety of applications often to do with masculinity, portraiture, culture and politics. His relational art works are framed by personal connections to his maternal Yuri Alaiku clan, from Omdara, Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea, and his paternal upbringing in the suburban landscape of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The dominant focus of his work involves the discussion of social and cultural issues, often using the theatre of sport as a springboard for his ideas, addressing notions of masculinity as expressed in sporting culture and in the realm of ‘tribal warfare’ in the PNG Highlands, which mimics the drama, color and trickery seen in its national sport, Rugby League. Challenging the hardwired stereotypes of centuries of colonialist ethnographies, Bridgeman uses reconstruction, slap-stick, and parody, to interrogate his own cultural and sexual identity in a broader context of belonging. In doing so, his work also seeks to address and subvert the harsh social realities of both his homeland cultures.

Bridgeman holds a Bachelor of Photography from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane (2010), where he developed his seminal work “The Sport and Fair Play of Aussie Rules” (2008-2010). Significant solo exhibitions and commissions include: “Kala Büng”, Milani Gallery, Brisbane, AU (2018); “My Brother and the Beast”, Gallerysmith, Melbourne, AU (2018); SNO 145, Sydney Non-Objective, Sydney, AU (2018); “The Fight”, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, AU (2017); “All Stars”, Carriageworks, Sydney, AU (2012); “Haus Man”, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney, AU (2012). Recent group exhibitions include: “Nirin”, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, AU (2020); “Just Not Australian”, Artspace, Sydney, AU (2019); “Australians in PNG”, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne, AU (2017); “Number 1 Neighbour”, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane, AU (2016); The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane, AU (2015–2016).

The performance video Triple X Bitter enacts a deranged pub scenario in psychedelic colors, involving Boi Boi the Labourer, a group of boisterous pub-goers, two pseudo-black babes and an inflatable pool. With Bridgeman taking center stage as Boi Boi the Labourer, the artist constructs and deconstructs the unfolding events, allowing the participants to explore their own perceptions, fears and understandings of rules of behavior in Australian pub culture, and its pervasive role in Australian cultural identity.

Triple X Bitter is one of seven performance-for-video works produced as part of Bridgeman’s interdisciplinary project The Sport and Fair Play of Aussie Rules (2008-2010). Drawing subversive parallels between the theatres of sport and ethnography, this body of work explores cross-cultural identity through the playful deconstruction of sex, gender and race politics. Bridgeman seeks to subvert race and gender stereotypes that underpin the foundations of national identity within contemporary Australia and Papua New Guinea. Using typical symbols from both nations, Bridgeman makes environments and scenarios in which fictional characters interact and explore tasks and activities inspired by the divergent ways of life from both his home countries.

In 2009, Eric Bridgeman traveled through remote parts of the Chimbu Province in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, his maternal homeland. Having been born in Australia, he became increasingly conscious of his own “white” Australian presence in his native land. The Fight is based on ethnographic conventions, from National Geographic to Irving Penn, which once aided in the promotion and consumption of Papua New Guinea as Australia’s next frontier. By means of acting out Western stereotypes of tribal war, The Fight parodies the history of ethnographic representation and the subsequent impact on the national and cultural identity of Papua New Guinea.