Ian Friend was born and educated in the UK, completing postgraduate studies at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 1975. He has worked as an artist, curator and educator since graduating and relocated to Australia in 1985 to work at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Since then he has lived and worked in Ballarat, Launceston and Brisbane, to where he relocated with his family in 1997. He continues to produce paintings and works on paper, with 2 harlequin poodle assistants, in an inner city home and studio in Brisbane.