About

Catherine Truman lives and works on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains and respects their deep and ongoing relationship to country.

Catherine Truman is an established artist working across the disciplines of art and science. She is co-founder and current partner of Gray Street Workshop- an internationally renowned artist-run workshop established in 1985 in Adelaide, South Australia, where she currently works and lives. The workshop celebrates forty years in 2025 with a major touring exhibition and publication. See the blog for details.

Truman’s research-based practice is renowned for its diversity and incorporates objects, digital image and film installation and contemporary jewellery with a focus upon the parallels between artistic process and scientific method.

Truman has researched historical and contemporary anatomical collections world-wide and has undertaken numerous residencies and art/science-based projects in science environments. Between 2009 and 2013 she was artist in residence in the Autonomic Neurotransmission Laboratory, the Anatomy and Histology departments and the Ian Gibbins Microscopy Suite at Flinders University, Adelaide and was awarded a prestigious ANAT Synapse grant in 2011.  

Truman was honoured with an Arts South Australia Fellowship in 2016 and was selected as the 2016 SALA (South Australian Living Artist) feature artist. She is the subject of a SALA monograph- Catherine Truman: touching distance, written by Melinda Rackham, published by Wakefield Press. A major survey exhibition Catherine Truman was held at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2016. 

The Jamfactory, Adelaide chose Truman as their 2017 Icon and presented a major solo exhibition Catherine Truman: no surface holds, highlighting her art/science practise, which toured nationally, 2017-2020. 

During 2019 she was visiting scholar at the Flinders Centre for Ophthalmology, Eye and Vision Research, School of Medicine, Flinders University and artist in residence at the State Herbarium and Botanic Gardens of South Australia undertaking a project titled The Visible Light Project: experiments in light and vision, that investigated the creative parallels between the physiology of the human eye and plants. During February- May 2021 Truman responded to this research in a major exhibition titled Shared Reckonings, held at The Museum of Economic Botany and The Dead House, Botanic Gardens of South Australia as part of the Adelaide Festival, 2021.

During 2022/2023 Truman was artist in residence at Carrick Hill, undertaking a project titled The Arrangements:assembling nature. This project has culminated in a major exhibition of new work integrated into the rooms of the Carrick Hill house museum and the Wall Gallery, renamed The Assembly Room for the duration of the exhibition. It was selected as an official 2023 Adelaide Festival event. See the blog for details.

In 2023 Truman was invited to participate in A Partnership for Uncertain Times. A year-long initiative instigated by Dr Deirdre Feeney , in partnership with University of South Australia and ANAT ( Australian Network of Art and Technology) Click here for more details.

The Taken Path: a durational project  developed in collaboration with Ian Gibbins was selected as part of the visual arts program for the 2025 Adelaide Festival. It will be presented in the Wall Gallery at Carrick Hill from February 12 until March 16, 2025.

Also in 2025, Gray Street Workshop celebrates their 40th anniversary with a major exhibition titled Beautiful Tensions and a significant publication written by Anne Brennan. See Blog for details.

NB: All images that appear on this website are by Grant Hancock unless attributed otherwise.

Please click here for selected CV.