Jon Cattapan

As of 2020 he exhibits with Station Gallery in Melbourne, Dominik Mersch Gallery in Sydney and Milani Gallery in Brisbane.

In 2016 Cattapan was selected to feature in the Melbourne Art Trams project. As part of the project a Melbourne tram was wrapped in an artistic design of Cattapan's.

Cattapan was the subject of the 2016 Archibald Prize finalist Benjamin Aitken's work Portrait of my mentor (Jon Cattapan and self). Aitken stated that Cattapan had "become something of a mentor" and that the two artists have a "unique relationship" given their difference in tertiary education. The two artists subsequently collaborated in 2018 on a series of ten paintings entitled Circling which exhibited at the La Trobe Art Institute

Cattapan was interviewed in 2016 on J. G. Ballard's novel The Drowned World stating that after first reading it he understood it as "a very prescient book" which "has stayed with me". Cattapan elaborated that he interpreted a strong sense of instability in The Drowned World stating that in the book "everything is on the verge of sliding away". Cattapan's series of work The City Submerged can be linked to his interpretation of The Drowned World through the series' watery washes and the its focus on dystopia.

In 2014, art critic Sasha Grishin described Cattapan's work as "accessible, but simultaneously also mysterious and hinting at a different level of existence". Grishin has also noted Cattapan's interest in information systems and surveillance technology.After returning from Timor-Leste, Cattapan began to experiment with dripping paint in the background of his works. Eyeline magazine interpreted this as a reaction to the instability of the 21st century and offered multiple different suggestions of the purpose and meaning of this change in technique.

Cattapan was the recipient of the Bulgari Art Award in 2013. The award, a partnership between Bulgari and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was bestowed upon Cattapan for his artwork titled Imagine a Raft (Hard Rubbish 4 + 5). As part of the award, the gallery purchased the artwork for $50,000 AUD and Cattapan was awarded and additional $30,000 AUD to travel to Italy to complete an artist's residency, which he intended to complete in Rome and Venice.

In 2009, the ABC aired a documentary following Cattapan's journey to Timor-Leste and the subsequent influence on his artistic process.

In 2008, Cattapan served as Australia's 63rd war artist, being deployed to Timor-Leste on a peacekeeping mission with the Australian Army. Cattapan has described his title as a war artist as overly dramatic given the relative stability of Timor-Leste however has also stated that he feels privileged to have been a war artist and that "the experience opened up a very rich and meaningful artistic journey for me".

An exhibition of Cattapan's work made between 1990 and 1991 titled 365 Days was shown in 1992 at Realities gallery in Toorak, Melbourne and Bellas gallery in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. In the corresponding exhibition catalogue Cattapan's artworks are described; "brief moments in a modern metropolis are captured in small detail only to be displaced amongst a melange of information... there is constant movement across the boundaries of figuration and abstraction".

From 1989 until 1991 Cattapan lived in the United States of America having a residencies at the Australia Council's Greene Street studio in Manhattan and at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Chris McCauliffe has stated that "Cattapan's time in New York was a turning point, both personally and professionally" and further described Cattapan's work at this time as "disjointed and emotional".

Cattapan started his academic career as a lecturer in painting, drawing and printmaking at his Alma mater, RMIT, in 1982, before becoming a lecturer in painting in 1987 and leaving the university in 1989. Between 1992 and 1994 Cattapan was lecturer in foundation studies at the Australian National University before becoming a senior lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts. Cattapan became an associate professor at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2007 and is currently a professor in visual art within the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Fine Art and Music at the Victorian College of the Arts after the two institutions merged in 2007. Cattapan also previously held the position of director at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Cattapan had his first group exhibition Crisis Drawings in 1978 with artist Peter Ellis at the RMIT faculty gallery and his first solo exhibition Paintings, Constructions and Works on Paper at Realities Gallery in 1983.

Cattapan initially studied computer science for a year at RMIT before instead deciding to pursue art and enrolling in a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at RMIT. He graduated from RMIT in 1977. Cattapan went on to complete a Masters of Arts by research in 1992 at Monash University.

In the late 1970s Cattapan became involved with the punk rock scene in St Kilda. As Cattapan notes:

During his deployment as the 63rd Australian war artist, Cattapan began to experiment with night-vision equipment. In his words:

Jon Cattapan (born 1956) is an Australian visual artist best known for his abstract oil paintings of cityscapes, his service as the 63rd Australian war artist and his work as a professor of visual art at the University of Melbourne in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the Victorian College of the Arts. Cattapan's artworks are held in several major galleries and collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, and the National Gallery of Australia.

Jon Cattapan was born in 1956 in Melbourne to Italian parents. Cattapan's family emigrated from Castelfranco in the Veneto region of Italy after World War II. Cattapan was first taught to draw aged six by an older cousin on a trip to Italy.