TRISTAN UNRAU

Early Years and Background

Born in Brampton, Canada, in 1989, Unrau developed his artistic practice after earning a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. He participated in the Banff Centre residency in 2013 and has lived and worked in Los Angeles since completing his studies. These formative experiences fostered his interest in painting’s many traditions and contradictions, an interest central to his current work.

Tristan Unrau Artworks

Tristan Unrau’s practice explores the terrain between ‘voice’ and ‘style’, challenging the expectation that an artist’s body of work should be visually uniform. His paintings reference multiple art historical periods—Romanticism, Realism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism—often mixing tragedy, comedy, and irreverence. Each canvas stands on its own terms, inviting viewers to find their own interpretive pathways.

In 2024, in relation to his work he said: ‘A painting with no overriding central motivation is what I want.’

Notable Tristan Unrau Exhibitions, Artworks and Awards

Tristan Unrau has held solo exhibitions at venues including 56 Henry (New York), Towards Gallery (Toronto), and Sebastian Gladstone Gallery (Los Angeles and New York). Group exhibitions include the Milwaukee Art Museum’s 50 Paintings (2023) and projects at Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto and inclusion in a group exhibition, Surface Steets, at Marian Goodman Gallery in 2018, curated by Russell Ferguson, which comprised paintings made in Los Angeles.

Select notable exhibition include:

• Re-Enactment (2024) at Sebastian Gladstone Gallery, New York (2024) which featured paintings circling around themes of death, comedy, shame, and fate, channeling and reimagining historical artists such as Blechen, Bonnard, Bouguereau, Bellini, and Max Klinger. Works such as Death Peeing, after Klinger (2024) and Gothic Ruins, after Blechen (2024) presented a dialectic between homage and parody, referencing painting tropes with tragicomic wit. Other notable pieces included Academy (2024), featuring ants that originated in daydream sketches, and Paulina (2024), an abstraction of undulating fabric inspired by Peter Schuyff.
• The Earth Not a Globe (2023), at Sebastian Gladstone Gallery, Hollywood which subversive paintings that play with familiar pictorial conventions, drawing influence from literature and art history. Works encouraged viewers to question assumed certainties in landscape and figurative painting, using techniques that disrupted expected narratives. Notable works included experimental landscapes and interiors charged with eccentric figurative elements.
• Soap Bubble in a Rose Garden (2021), at Sebastian Gladstone Gallery, Los Angeles, juxtaposed Unrau’s paintings with Willy Reed’s ceramic sculptures. The works created a visual narrative based on inner dialogue and daily experience, highlighting Unrau’s interest in material plurality and art historical references. Notable paintings explored playfulness and meticulous craftsmanship, demonstrating the ongoing dialogue between painting and sculpture in his practice.
• Three-time finalist, Royal Bank of Canada Painting Competition

Tristan Unrau FAQs

Ocula | 2025