Born in 1979 on Wathaurong Country, Geelong, Nicholas Mangan lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne where he is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University.

Selected recent solo exhibitions include shows at LABOR, Mexico City (2020), Sutton Gallery, Melbourne (2020), Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth (2019), Mossman, Wellington (2019), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017), the Dowse Museum of Contemporary Art, Lower Hutt (2017), Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2016), the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2016), Artspace, Sydney (2016), and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015).

Mangan's work has been included in major group exhibitions and surveys of contemporary art globally including most recently A Biography of Daphne, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia (2021), trust & confusion, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021), The Penumbral Age: Art in the Time of Planetary Change, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland (2020), 11th Taipei Biennial: Post-Nature - A Museum as an Ecosystem, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2019), Antipodean Stories, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy (2019), The Posthuman City, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (2019), 21st Biennale of Sydney: Superposition, Sydney, Australia (2018), The National 2017: New Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2017), SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2016: NERIRI KIRURU HARARA, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2016) and the 11th Gwangju Biennale: The Eighth Climate (What does art do?), Gwangju, South Korea (2016).

Selected awards and residencies include a residency at Heron Island Research Station, facilitated by UQ Art Museum as part of Blue Assembly (2022), Australia Council Fellowship for Visual Arts (2020), Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture (co-winner, 2020), Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Excellence by an Early Career Researcher, Monash University (2018), Australia Council Creative Australia Fellowship (2014), Residency at Centre International des Recollets, Paris (2011), Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship (2007), and the Australia Council New York Green Street Residency (2006), alongside numerous other grants.

His work is held in major public and private collections globally including Tate Modern, London; Lafayette Anticipations Collection, Paris, France; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Artbank, Sydney; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand; Michael Buxton Collection, Melbourne; Geelong Gallery, Victoria; Koc Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul, Turkey; McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, Melbourne; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; and Te Papa, New Zealand.

Mangan is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, and LABOR, Mexico City.