Originally from the Catholic capital of Guadalajara, Mexico, he currently resides in Narrm Melbourne, Australia. Ramírez completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT University and an Honours Degree of Fine Arts at Monash University. He is represented by MARS Gallery.

Curriculum Vitae ︎︎︎ ︎.PDF

contact(at)diego-ramirez.net

@diegoismonster

Short Bio

Diego Ramírez is an artist with dreams, a writer with hopes and a facilitator with beliefs. He has shown locally at ACMI x ACCA, Gertrude Glasshouse, Westspace, Blakdot and internationally at Deslave (Mexico), Human Resources (US), Torrance Art Museum (US), Art Central (HK), and Careof (IT). Ramírez has written locally for Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art and Australia, Disclaimer, MEMO, un Projects and internationally with NECSUS (NL) and BLUE journal (US x FR). As a facilitator, he is the Director at SEVENTH Gallery and sits in panels for Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, and is a peer assessor for Australia Council. He is represented by MARS Gallery.

The Artist

Diego Ramírez began his career making video art with a cinematic interest. His output in this area was subject to a joint solo screening by ACCA x ACMI titled Diego Ramirez: Towards the Umbral, curated by Annabelle Lacroix in 2018. He is part of the survey show Melbourne Now at the NGV with his new video The Perfect Ever co-curated by recess in 2023. His moving image work is shown internationally, participating in Terror En Lo Profundo curated by Deslave at Human Resources LA. And various international festivals, such as EXiS, FILE Sao Pualo, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Kuala Lumpur EFVF, and Channels Video Art Festival.

Over the years, he expanded his practice by working with different mediums.

Examples of objects include the life size vampire coffin for the group show Those Monuments Don’t Know Us at Bundoora Homestead in 2019. He exhibited a large scale banner, tackling Columbus’ manipulation of a solar eclipse, in 2022 at Aeon Resurrection curated by Jake Treacy in Incinerator Gallery. This is an ongoing project he explored earlier as a mural in Necronomicon Uploaded at Desvale, in their address Av. H Cristobal Colon, Tijuana, Mexico.

He is also known for performance, like the black piñata filled with institutional confetti he broke in Contact High curated by Anador Walsh at Gertrude Glasshouse 2023, and the comical audition for Buffy The Vampire Slayer in Lifenessless at West Space x Gertrude Contemporary in 2019, as part of Ventriloquy curated by Joel Stern.

The Writer

He incidentally became a writer by doing catalogues for friends, early in his career. Today he regularly contributes essays, profiles, reviews and prose to a range of publications. In 2022, he wrote a catalogue essay for Jon Campbell in Speech Patterns, at AGWA. His arts criticism features in Art and Australia, NECSUS, un Projects, Runway Journal, Art Collector, Running Dog, MEMO, Art Collector, Art Guide, Blue Journal, Meanjin, Performance Review and Australian Book Review.

In 2019, he presented The Horrible Affair between a Sadistic Image and a Masochistic Text at West Space as part of WRITING&CONCEPTS, a lecture on the relationship between his art and writing. Ther next year, he participated in Writing In The Expanded Field with ACCA x non/fictionLab. In 2022, he delivered a masterclass for the Digital Young Writers Program at the National Gallery of Australia. 

He has spoken about his ideas on art and writing, on high profile media channels such as ABC and SBS. As well as conference presentations such as Dark Eden at Artspace, and Experimenta Social at ACMI X. In 2021, he participated on a panel for Print Screen at the National Gallery of Victoria, speaking about digital publishing. 

The Facilitator

Somewhere along the way, he also started a career laboring in the arts. His activities in this area are (mostly) aligned to his values in art and writing. He is the Director of SEVENTH Gallery, an influential 20 year old artist run space showcasing experimental practices. Since taking over the space in late 2018, and in collaboration with the Board, SEVENTH has undergone a crucial period of transformation and rapid growth. Moving from a grassroots operation to an arts organisation capable of employing 3 staff to run multiple funded programs, including 2 fully subsidised studios, mentorships, public programs and workshops.

In 2022, he participated as an assessor in Creative Victoria’s Creators Fund, City of Melbourne’s Annual Arts Grants Panel and City of Darebin’s Art Collection Acquisition Panel. He is also a peer assessor for Australia Council and a panel member for Darebin Art & Heritage Advisory Panel. 

He is the Editor-at-Large at Running Dog, an art magazine (currently in hiatus) based in Sydney currently on hiatus. In 2018, he produced Neutron Star, a workshop delivered by MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow Guillermo Gomez Peña and his ‘troupe’ La Pocha Nostra, curated by Bon Mott.