Join artist Todd Fuller for his artist talk in the gallery during his exhibition of '1940: BASED ON A TRUE STORY', recorded live Friday 13th June 2025. available to watch on youtube https://youtu.be/7p_OqUKskQY ‘1940-Based on a True Story’, is a speculative history piece focusing on two men who may have been same-sex lovers during World War II. While the evidence around this pair is inconclusive, diary entries and other primary materials suggest a special relationship between a young Australian pilot who died in the Battle of Britain and his older male guardian, who sponsored his aeronautical training after bringing him to England. This piece also highlights the obscured nature of queer history—a consequence of homosexuality historically being illegal, often leading to the erasure of evidence. The elevation of queer history has been an important objective in my practice, aiming to challenge dominant narratives and honouring the lives and relationships of LGBTIQ Australians who were forced into the shadows. In my hand-drawn animation practice, I embrace the imperfections and traces left by the animation process, allowing the medium’s remnants to echo uncertainty and suggest gaps in historical narratives. Through this work, I aim to mobilise whispers of a past, inviting viewers to engage with the spaces between known facts and imagined realities. Todd Fuller is a well-known Australian Artist whose work extends traditional notions of drawing across film, animation and performance works. Fuller is best known for his hand drawn animations which address a broad range of themes including Queer and Regional Narratives of Australia past and present. His narratives often position audiences to consider connection between person and place, love and loss, commonality, difference and belonging. He has been awarded a number of residencies that have informed and developed his practice, including time spent at Bundanon Trust, Hill End, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, as well as international stints at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, the British School of Rome, and recently the NG Creative Residency in Provence. A graduate of Sydney’s National Art School, Fuller has exhibited widely across Australia. He was a finalist in the 2019 Sulman Prize, won the prestigious Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award in 2018, and his work is present in various public and private Australian collections, including the Parliament House Art Collection, Artbank, Sydney Harbour Trust, Museums of HIstory NSW, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Muswellbrook Arts Centre, Grafton Regional Gallery and the State Library of New South Wales . Alongside his national success, Fuller has gained international attention, with his works in exhibitions in the United States, Italy, France, South Korea, Bangladesh, England, Singapore and Malta. Follow us on instagram @mcontemporary
