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About



Eugene Howard works across various mediums looking into ideas around care, custodianship and place. Most recently Eugene used a garden as both a site of making and a broader methodology to inform creative practice. Eugene's ongoing works include open air watercolour painting projects looking at specific sites across Victoria and video documentation archiving collaborative projects and events.

Eugene Howard is an independent artist and arts worker. He is Artistic Director and CEO of Residency Projects Inc., a Not For Profit (NFP) arts and cultural organisation he founded with artist Kate Hill in 2017. He has been developing contemporary arts projects since 2013, often revolving around a 'residency' model. Through his organisation he has worke in partnership with the Victorian State Government, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and Nillumbik Shire Council amongst many others, delivering arts and cultural programs in rural and regional communities. He is currently two years into the development of a major new multi-use, permanent art and cultural center on the outskirts of Melbourne, the 'Garambi Baan (Laughing Waters) Residency Centre', launching in 2020.

Eugene sits on the Testing Grounds Board, appointed by Creative Victoria in 2016, and since 2017 has sat on Nillumbik Shire Council’s Arts and Cultural Development Advisory Committee, steering the development and delivery of the Council’s Arts & Cultural Strategy (2018-2022). Eugene has been involved in numerous inter-disciplinary projects as both an artist and administrator.

Eugene specialises in developing ‘place’ through nurturing the union of art, architecture, community, landscape, culture and plant form. 2017 saw Eugene deliver an ambitious rural artist-in-residence program in partnership with the State Government of Victoria, utilising a dis-used
State Government primary school in NE Victoria, working closely with artists Chaco Kato and Dylan Martorell in collaboration with Co-Director Kate Hill. He studied at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), RMIT University and has undertaken scholarship with the New York Studio School in Italy. As an artist, Eugene has exhibited internationally and is held in institutional collections including RMIT, Maroondah City Council and Abbotsford Convent Foundation, amongst others.

Alongside development of the new 'Garambi Baan Residency Centre', Eugene has most recently been working with Maudie Palmer AO, founding Director of Heide Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), developing a comprehensive plan for an internationally significant 'Birrarung Cultural Precinct', to interact directly with Melbourne's new North East Link, whilst enshrining protections for a significant tract of parkland and building a new Birrarung Meeting place, accommodating artist studios, conference spaces and performance/exhibition space.



Writing commissions



Eugene has written professionally for artists and organisations on funding applications since 2016. He has been involved in successfully securing both Federal, State and Local Government funding, as well as a wide range of philanthropic support. Successful projects include:

  • Marten Bequest, administered by the Australia Council for the Arts
  • Creators Fund, Creative Victoria (multiple)
  • VicArts Grants (Creative Victoria)
  • Australia Council for the Arts Project Funding (multiple)
  • Australia Council for the Arts Emerging Leaders program
  • Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras/ANZ Community Fund (SGLMG)
  • Helen McPherson Smith Trust
  • National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)/Mecca M-Power 
  • The Besen Family Foundation