Shane Drinkwater (b. Sheffield, Tasmania) is an Australian painter whose abstract visual language explores mark-making as a form of non-verbal communication. His practice is characterized by the systematic repetition of minimalist elements—lines, dots, dashes, and symbols—used to construct dense, layered compositions that reference systems of mapping, cosmology, and coded information. Working primarily in acrylic on canvas and treated paper, his work operates at the intersection of gesture, structure, and spatial logic.

Drinkwater studied Fine Art at the University of Tasmania, School of Art (1979–81), followed by the National Art School in Sydney (1982). A recipient of the 1988 Alliance Française Art Fellowship awarded by the Australia Council, he lived and worked in Paris for six years, a period that contributed significantly to the development of his material approach and conceptual orientation. His early career also included teaching and exhibiting extensively across regional Australia.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include The Cosmic Cartographies of Shane Drinkwater at Cavin Morris Gallery, New York (2023), and Memories, Maps and Stars at Boom Gallery, Geelong (2022). Group exhibitions include the Outsider Art Fair, New York (2024), and Obsession for Numbers and Schedules at the Museum of the Mind, Amsterdam (2022–23), which acquired nine of his works for its permanent collection.

Drinkwater is represented by Cavin Morris Gallery (New York), Boom Gallery (Victoria), Pulp Gallery (Massachusetts), Gagné Contemporary (Toronto), and Copenhagen Outsider Art Gallery (Denmark). His work is held in private and institutional collections in Australia, Europe, and North America. He currently lives and works in Queensland, Australia.