The 2021 Geelong contemporary art prize is a signature event that assists with the development of the Geelong Gallery’s collection while fostering Australian artists and contemporary painting practice in general.

Bundit Puangthong’s work ‘Skull splitter’ takes inspiration from a famous Buddhist story where a prince’s ship sinks, and he has to swim all the way back to shore. The story represents the challenges we all face, despite our social status, and the lessons we learn from them. ⁠

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IMAGE:

Bundit Puangthong

Skull splitter 2020

synthetic polymer paint and spray paint

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ANTOINETTE O'BRIEN

'KIDS THAT ARE BANNED FROM THE SQUARE'

Antoinette O’Brien’s subjects are tender tough. Just learning to smoke and fight and get dressed without being told how. They are the innovators, influencers and magicians on the streets. But there is something else that brings these sculptures together. Most of these kids sit, squat, lean on a support. Some quotidian piece of street junk like a milk crate. Except look at the glaze, the colour, it has been made significant. As has the folding stool, the wall, the rock…. These are the things that help tether us to our environment. These supports bring structural balance to each sculpture while putting forth a good question: if you are going to ban me from belonging, what will hold me now? - Jaimee Edwards

LISMORE REGIONAL GALLERY - GALLERY 5

7 AUG - 26 SEPT 2021

Image: Louie 2021 ceramic, costume jewellery, fox fur, 48 x 41 x 38 cm

Spanning over a career of 20 years, Thai-Australian artist Vipoo Srivilasa has harnessed art’s ability to connect creatives, organisations and the broader community.

Wellness Deity captured this collaborative energy in the light-filled room of Linden’s ground floor gallery. The 19 drawing submissions and accompanying writing surround the walls while Srivilasa’s ceramic iterations sit across two tables at the centre of the space. The hand-selected drawings from a total of 63 submissions from Australia and overseas showcase stories rooted in reflections, experiences, and hopes emerging out of the pandemic. Words Celina Lei

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The alternative Archibald and Wynne Prize selection

5th June – 26 September 2021

The Salon des Refusés was initiated by the S.H. Ervin Gallery in 1992 in response to the large number of works entered into the Archibald Prize which were not selected for display in the official exhibition. The Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s most high profile and respected awards which attracts hundreds of entries each year and the S.H. Ervin Gallery’s ‘alternative’ selection has become a much anticipated feature of the Sydney scene.

Each year our panel is invited to go behind the scenes of the judging process for the annual Archibald Prize for portraiture and Wynne Prize for landscape painting and figure sculpture at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, to select an exhibition from the many hundreds of works entered in both prizes but not chosen for the official award exhibition.

The Salon des Refusés exhibition at the S.H. Ervin Gallery has established an excellent reputation that rivals the selections in the ‘official’ exhibition, with works selected for quality, diversity, humour and experimentation, and which examine contemporary art practices, different approaches to portraiture and responses to the landscape.

JANE GUTHLEBEN Greetings from Bibbenluke (Lucy Culliton, artist)

This open competition is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the Gallery (although in the early years all entrants were hung). Although it is a non-acquisitive prize, several of the entries are now part of the Gallery’s collection.

Born in Titjikala in 1957, Mulda experienced a childhood accident that left her with impaired vision, but surgery has improved her sight. Exhibiting since 2008, she creates bright canvases with distinctive cursive text, depicting scenes of everyday life within Abbott’s Camp and drawing attention to social and political issues with emotional honesty.

In this portrait, the artist is wearing the stripey top and sits with her daughter, Louise Abbott. The other two people cooking roo tails on the fire represent all town camp women. As Mulda puts it: they are ‘maybe me and Louise, maybe any womans. This is town camp life. Every day.’

Mulda is also a finalist in this year’s Sulman Prize.

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Art, Activism And The Archibald

CREATIVE PEOPLE

Art has always been a vehicle for social dialogue, and a window into current political issues. When Sydney artist Julian Meagher met former professional soccer player, commentator and human rights advocate Craig ‘Fozzy’ Foster AM, he was inspired.

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Marisa Purcell is a finalist in the 2021 Sulman Prize with her work 'That Time of Day'. Administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the prize was first awarded in 1936. Each year the trustees invite a guest artist to judge the competition.

Marisa's work 'That time of day' considers those moments between day and night, where the last burst of blue lets itself dissipate into the darkness. These transitory spaces are intrinsic to human experience everywhere.

The painting contemplates layers of light and colour and the affect it can have when you are surrounded by it. Supported by a warm ground of raw linen and pink, veils of transparent colour shift in and out of perceptibility, activating an awareness of looking. This is a human-scaled painting, intended as an opportunity to feel and connect with this shared human experience.

ART/EDIT MAGAZINE

Living in Lismore New South Wales where she runs Basso Studio, multi-disciplinary artist Antoinette O’Brien is currently working in clay, creating a series of busts and full-figure sculptures. Whilst she has always maintained a studio practice, Antoinette has come into her own recently, working towards a diploma in ceramics. The arresting faces of her ceramic forms gaze out with a lifelike intensity, revealing a consideration of painting techniques. High fired and glazed through multiple firings including reduction, oxidation and lustre, the clay is pushed to its limits, resulting in tearing and buckling that speaks to themes of endurance and precarity. With glazes made from scratch and tested extensively, Antoinette approaches her craft with discipline and was recently awarded the Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize by esteemed artist Abdul Abdullah. Antoinette is preparing for a solo exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery in August this year.

Featured image: Antoinette O’Brien, Sitting Pretty. Ceramic and found object, 47 x 36 x 28cm

2020 HURFORD HARDWOOD PORTRAIT PRIZE

The 2020 Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize is a national portrait prize administered by Lismore Regional Gallery open to any media. 2020 judge Abdul Abdullah, named Antoinette O’Brien as the winner of the $10,000 acquisitive prize for her portrait of Helen Deravenchecko, saying: ‘The combination of ceramic elements in the work drew me into a story about memory, and how moments attach themselves to our experience.’ Abdullah also recognised Michelle Dawson with a highly commendation for her portrait of the late Vera Wasowski

Stefan Dunlop's work 'Splash II' has been donated to the Sunshine Coast Art Collection through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2021.

The Sunshine Coast Art Collection now numbers over 800 works, including winning works of the inaugural Sunshine Coast Art Prize in 2006 by one of the foremost Nyoongar artists, Shane Pickett (1957 – 2010).

"The prize’s main impetus is to build the Collection, but it’s also a great device for visibility of the vibrancy of the Sunshine Coast arts and culture."
- Collection Curator Nina Shadforth, 2021

IMAGES:

1/ Philanthropist Ferre De Deyne, Collection Curator Nina Shadforth and artist Stefan Dunlop

2/ Stefan Dunlop
Splash II 2017
oil on canvas
200 × 240.5 cm