Michael Vale is a visual artist, curator and academic. In 2006 he completed his PhD at Monash University with a multi-media “art fiction” project entitled Le Chien qui Fume – A Smokey Life. Vale was the 2021 joint winner of the prestigious Doug Moran prize. In 2006 he was awarded Best Film on Art at the prestigious Asolo Artfilm Festival in northern Italy for a video work entitled The Long Walk. He has also been a finalist in the Archibald Prize on three occasions, with portraits of rock’n’roll musicians Dave Graney & Clare Moore in 2012, Warren Ellis in 2013 and for his work Kid Congo on the island of the pink monkey birds in 2019. His work The Great Divide, 2016 has won the Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize 2018. 

He has held 22 solo exhibitions since 1986, as well as curating and participating in numerous group exhibitions and short film festivals. For the last twenty years has been teaching in art schools including Monash University, RMIT, and the Hong Kong Art School. He is currently a senior lecturer in Fine Art in the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture (MADA) at Monash University. His artworks are held in several public collections in Australia, as well as private collections in Australia and overseas. His paintings can also be seen in Luna Park’s ‘Ghost Train’.