Robert WHYTE
BIO
Visual artist, Sound artist, Illustrator, Poet, Writer
Robert Whyte (born 1955 in Melbourne), is an Australian artist, scientist, author, designer, historian, editor and journalist. His works include the novel “Manacles” (1985) and a practical guide to creek restoration, The “Creek in Our Back Yard” (2011). His main activities in 2015 include writing materials on South East Queensland’s natural and social history, for web sites and museums. In 1976 he was awarded a One Year Young Writer’s Fellowship by the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. In 1978 Planet Press, Brisbane, published the 64-page “Negative Thinking”, a book of short prose pieces and drawings, with poems by co-author Peter Anderson.
In 1980, under the name Robot Wireless, he produced three small experimental books published by Australia’s New Poetry editor Cheryl Adamson’s Brou Ha Ha Books, “From Inside the Asylum” (500 copies), “Life and works of Robert Wireless” (100 copies) and “A 3D Glimpse of the Hearing Process” (with Cheryl Adamson and Hugh Ramage).
In 1981 he completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Art Studies at Alexander Mackie CAE (now University of Western Sydney) during which time he produced a collage thesis “The Mysterious”, held an exhibition of international mail art at the artist-run Sussex Street Gallery, was a contributor to a major Sydney art magazine Art Network and participated in that year’s Open Artist Studio project.
Late in 1981 he coauthored a radio series on 2SER “Hereditary Penguinism”. His extensive mail art collection is now housed at the University’s Library.
In 1981-1985 while in London, Vienna, Upper Austria and Melbourne he wrote a large three part novel based on Dante’s Divine Comedy and two novellas about Don Quixote as a modern day private detective (unpublished). In 1985 he was responsible for editing, design and layout of “Environment Victoria”, the magazine of the Conservation Council of Victoria, now Environment Victoria. In 1987 as co-editor he helped found contemporary art magazine “Eyeline” with Sarah Follent and Graham Coulter-Smith. Robert Whyte is a co-owner of ToadShow Pty Ltd, a multimedia firm Brisbane, Queensland. He has taught new media and writing at Griffith University, University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology.
During the 1980s and 90s he was a visiting lecturer at the Australian School of Journalism. As a web designer he was responsible for “Brisbane Stories” a collection of web sites revealing stories of hidden Brisbane featuring art, environment and history. Robert Whyte was an editor of “Cane Toad Times” from 1985 to 1990. Since 2002 he has been an active environmentalist, photographer and nature writer and has written and presented on biodiversity and habitat restoration.
He is an honorary research arachnologist at Queensland Museum and is preparing a key to Jumping Spiders of Australia for the CSIRO web site, and “A field Guide to the Spiders of Australia” for CSIRO Publishing. Another of Robert Whyte’s personas is Ifnot Whynot, publisher of Off Whyte Press books, none of which has ever appeared.
Art Practice Keywords:
Artist, Illustrator, Designer, Poet, Writer
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Collections
Various Private Collections