2021 EXHIBITION. womensartprizetas.com.au - Women's Art Prize Tasmania
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2021 EXHIBITION. womensartprizetas.com.au
LETTER FROM
CAROL SCHWARTZ AO,
CHAIR TRAWALLA FOUNDATION.
The RANT ARTS team have worked
incredibly hard to keep this prize going
which showcases some extraordinary
Tasmanian talent. Trawalla Foundation
has been delighted to support the
prize since it was reimagined and
see the impact it is having within the
community. As we know, the arts
sector has been particularly impacted
by the pandemic and I commend the
team on their perseverance in adapting
to the challenges.
I am thrilled that the Women’s Art
Prize will hold the full set of physical
exhibitions this year, beginning in
Burnie on 10 June. We are excited
about the opening of The Tasman hotel
in Hobart later this year, a Trawalla
Group development, which will
become the proud home to the winning
artworks each year.
I am proud to support the Women’s
Art Prize Tasmania and the important As the state’s only art prize for women,
work they are doing to support the the Women’s Art Prize Tasmania is
artistic development of Tasmanian pursuing critical work by creating
women artists. The prize is a vital step awareness of gender issues as well
towards gender equality in the arts by as identifying and promoting the
showcasing, celebrating and fostering exceptional talents which exist within
the talent of women artists. the community.
Carol Schwartz AO
Chair Trawalla Foundation
womensartprizetas.com.au 01
ABOUT EXHIBITION
THE PRIZE. DATES & LOCATION.
The Women’s Art Prize Tasmania is the state’s only female BURNIE
art competition. Re-launched in 2018, the prize aims
11 JUNE -
to inspire, facilitate and celebrate the development of
25 JULY 2021
professional and emerging women artists in Tasmania.
MAKERS SPACE GALLERY
This prestigious and exclusive The Women’s Art Prize Tasmania
competition consists of three prize seeks to inspire through: 2 BASS HWY,
categories:
– Identifying, promoting, encouraging
BURNIE, TAS, 7320
• $
15,000 acquisitive and celebrating exceptional local and
prize presented by the emerging Tasmanian women artists,
Trawalla Foundation, – Exhibiting high quality and emerging
• $
3,000 Bell Bay Aluminium art to the Tasmanian public,
People’s Choice award, and, – Increasing awareness of culture,
Visual Arts and gender issues within
• $
1,500 Zonta Emerging
Artist prize.
Tasmania, HOBART
– Developing an extensive network of 8 OCTOBER -
The prize is judged by a panel
comprised of recognised arts industry
support for women’s art in Tasmania 31 OCTOBER 2021
through partnerships and sponsors,
professionals. The prize is open to
Tasmanian artists identifying as
and ROSNY BARN
women. Entries are accepted across – Promoting artistic education and LOT 2 ROSNY HILL RD,
all mediums and open to artists of all facilitation with schools and young
people.
ROSNY PARK TAS 7018
career stages. The prize encourages
artists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
island heritage to enter.
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 03
WORDS
FROM
THE
COMMITTEE.
The mission of the Women’s Art Prize Our thanks go to our partners and
Tasmania is to empower and celebrate sponsors for their unfailing commitment
women artists across the state. This is to the prize and for their ongoing
especially important during challenging support of Tasmania’s women artists.
times. Women’s Art Prize Tasmania We acknowledge and thank our prize
has become one of the state’s most partners: the Trawalla Foundation,
KITTY TAYLOR NATHAN TUCKER LOU CLARK prestigious annual art prizes that Bell Bay Aluminium, part of the Rio
RANT ARTS. RANT ARTS. BELL BAY ALUMINIUM. encourages and inspires the creativity of Tinto Group and Zonta (Area 5) for their
women artists in Tasmania. support of the Acquisitive, Emerging
Artists and People’s Choice Prizes. We
The importance of the award as would also like to acknowledge the
an inspiration and focus cannot be Tasmanian Government, University
overstated, with 157 entries submitted of Tasmania, Clarence City Council,
for this year’s prize. Our thanks and Contemporary Art Tasmania, Walker
admiration go to each artist for their Designs, Think Big Printing and RANT for
resilience and talent. They gave so their financial and in-kind support.
generously of themselves to submit their
entries and we deeply appreciate their Congratulations to our 2021 finalists and
support of the prize. prize winners!
CHRISTINE HEPBURN SUE DYSON We would also like to thank and
BUSINESS CONSULTANT. ZONTA. acknowledge the judges for their time,
expertise, knowledge and experience in
shortlisting the 25 finalists and selecting
the Acquisitive and Emerging Prizes.
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 05
MEET
OUR JUDGES.
KYLIE JOHNSON. SARAH RHODES.
Kylie Johnson is a curator at Contemporary Art Tasmania and has Born in 1974, Sarah studied fine art and psychology gaining her
an independent art practice. Kylie has developed and facilitated arts degree from the University of Sydney. Working between
numerous projects at CAT including the Shotgun program - since Sydney and Tasmania, she has created documentary-style images
its inception in 2010 – to deliver targeted support and opportunity exploring ways in which the natural environment can guide an
to Tasmanian artists through industry access, critical engagement understanding of one’s inner world. In 2020, she won the Women’s
and the provision of new work. She employs curatorship within Art Prize Tasmania with Paper Plane and in 2011 she won the
her practice as a means of enabling and shaping the social New York Photo Award (Fine Art) for Play, depicting children
relationships through which art is generated. undertaking survival games in the bush to understand their
feelings of grief. Five times a finalist in the National Photographic
Kylie received her MFA from the University of Tasmania in Hobart Portrait Prize, in 2014 she exhibited at Photoville in New York and
during which time she also studied at the Glasgow School of in 2015 at the Australian Centre for Photography. Her photographs
Art, Scotland. Supported by an Arts Tasmania Professional have been published by The New York Times, GEO Germany,
Development Fellowship, in 2018 Kylie undertook research into Australia Geographic, the British Museum, Smithsonian and the
innovative contemporary art organisation models at Matt’s Gallery, Vatican Museum. She is currently studying a PhD in the School
Studio Voltaire and other progressive art spaces in London. Kylie of Creative Arts, at the University of Tasmania. She is a founding
has worked at Artspace in Sydney and has contributed to various member of the female-identifying photography collective Lumina.
art advisory committees and panels in Australia.
TRACY PUKLOWSKI.
At the time of judging, Tracy was the General Manager - Creative
Arts and Cultural Services & Director of the Queen Victoria
Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston. She has since taken up
the role as Senior Director of the National Aboriginal Art Gallery
planned for in Alice Springs.
Tracy has an MA (Hons) in Art History, and postgraduate
qualifications in Museum Studies and Museum Leadership. She
has held a range of senior position across regional and national
cultural institutions, including Director of the National Army
Museum of New Zealand, and Associate Director at the National
Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa.
Her Art History studies included specialisation in women artists
and Australian art.
Inclusive practice is core to Tracy’s practice as a cultural leader,
and is also a central element of QVMAG’s development as a
dynamic and thought-provoking museum and gallery. Under
Tracy’s leadership, QVMAG is encouraging new conversations about
its collections through sharing different perspectives and stories.
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 07
ABIGAIL
GIBLIN.
Late Summer Soak, 2021
Floral installation, documented and mounted to aluminium
67 x 100 cm
There’s a saying that time heals all wounds, but grief tells a different story.
Time passes with each year marked by the natural rhythms of our surrounds;
Wattle bursts in late winter, Blossom follows, paving way for our streets to be
lined with vibrant Flowering Gum in late summer. There is no marker or end to
which one will grieve for another. ‘Late Summer Soak’ reflects on the surreal
life flowers take on when they become markers of loss, and utilises Flowering
Gum to acknowledge the passage of time. Flowers play a significant role in how
we deal with death, as we use them to speak for us when we have no words.
The Hydrangea embodies this, as it becomes a physical mediator between
the viewer and myself.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 09
ANDREA
BARKER.
Femme, 2020-21
Porcelain
70 x 10 x 60 cm
My collections of objects are intended to create a space for contemplation and
a sense of tranquillity where silence, stillness and restraint abide alongside a
notion of simplicity and humility. An exploration and celebration of the poetics of
feminine form, through the archaeology of the vessel and its remains allude to
the beauty and strength of women through the ages from antiquity to the present.
Each piece gently presents a sense of curve and balance enclosing space, time,
memory and emotion.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 11
ANNE
MORRISON.
Small Worlds, 2020
Acrylic on linen
122 x 137 cm
I live and work in Forth on Tasmania’s North West Coast. As an abstract painter
I have been creating works in response to my local coastal environment and
surrounding bushlands where I walk most days. ‘Small worlds’ is a painting which
weaves together my experience of the bush after heavy rain and the tiny colourful
forms often discovered bursting with life, hidden in the undergrowth. The fluid
painting processes emerge as a primary metaphor in exploring the nature of
geographic experience; how a place is known, remembered, understood and
engaged with. For me, this evolves over time; a familiar place observed all year
round, year in year out, in a continual process of transition and transformation.
I aimed to explore ways to dissolve the world’s solidity by focusing on fluid painting
processes to evoke complex patterns that mimic the rhythms of natural forces,
echoing growth and form, airborne and waterborne particles, seeds, lichens,
mosses, colonies of microorganisms, the branching networks of mycelium, energy
and matter. This dynamic layering of fluid pigment invites the viewer to consider
‘landscape’ not as something fixed and static, but as a process or medium, a living
system existing in a perpetual state of flux.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 13
CASSIE
SULLIVAN.
Country is Calling, 2021
Giclée print on cotton rag
100 x 72 cm
Georgia stands on nuenonne Country, calling in our ancestors.
Their presence appears as a bird, swooping and surrounding her. They are talking
and we listen.
As we exist here on the sand our ancestors have travelled for tens of thousands
of years, we heal. We heal our family, we disrupt our colonisation, we unbury the
past and we form new pathways forward. Georgia through education and activism,
I through art and research, both of us through story.
In her left hand she holds an animal skin and, in her right, a shell necklace,
these are items of reverence and belonging that tie her to culture. This is what
we look like now. Strong and sensitive indigenous women raising the voice of
contemporary Aboriginal Tasmanians on an island that often feels isolated with a
reflection that often feels distorted.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 15
DIANE
ALLISON.
Fake Muse #1, 2020
Hand cut collected “Vogue” magazine covers
94 x 71 cm
‘Fake Muse #1’ consists of nine different “Vogue” magazine covers, gridded and
hand cut into 5940 individual pieces. These tiny cells, assembled by hand, form a
reinvented, pixelated cover which has increased nine fold. The new “super” model
adorning the cover is a blended and blurred construct of the classic and often
passive model pose of such images. It disrupts notions of perfection and beauty.
It asks us to pause and reflect upon cultural, social, age and gender perceptions
and to question the context, motives and accuracy of the vast array of imagery and
information we consume.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 17ELAINE
GREEN.
Clouds in Flux, 2021
Oil on masonite
40 x 60 cm
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Edgar Degas
It is the ephemerality of clouds and mist and what might exist beyond that
intrigues me. My interest lies in the fleeting nature of the elements, perceiving a
certain moment and then attempting to capture its memory: the essence of that
point in time.
I aspire to convey the experience of being immersed in the clouds rather than
making realistic representations of them.
Creations born of experience and memory of place, my works begin as
abstractions; manipulating oil paint, exploring spaces that exist only on the
canvas, blurring and rubbing back, adding, and reducing until eventually a
narrative is revealed.
Always in a state of flux, clouds like memories indistinct, create an atmospheric
poetry, if only momentarily.
Rather than ‘framing Nature’ my work has always resonated the 19th century
Romantic notion of elevating landscape painting to a metaphysical level. It is
seen as the extension of an inner sense of being, a place where Nature and Self
are fused. The difference between the observer and the observed is subsumed
in a boundless luminosity. Like all artists I am constantly seeking the light,
the troposphere, constantly in motion, provides never-ending inspiration and
challenges to capture that light and the changing moods of the environment.’
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 19ELOISE
KIRK.
A Bruise for a Bruise, 2021
Collage, acrylic and resin on wood
50 x 40 cm
My work explores the unification of painting, collage and installation, sampling
images of geological formations, waves and clouds. Through the use of erasure,
fragmentation and collage I use a sequence of symbolic arrangements. The work
is explicitly elemental, offering an aesthetic response to the juncture between
natural beauty and fragility and testing the boundaries between the romantic and
the surreal.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 21ERIN
BRANDALL.
Under Her Skin, 2021
Digital print
120 x 120 cm
An exploration into creating an ancestral archive, using monoprint self- portraits
on ephemeral mediums.
I endeavour to uncover the ghosts in my skin, by wiping away my painted face to
reveal haunted traces of the faces underneath.
The faces of my matrilineal ancestors emerge to remind us that we are the sum of
many parts, many stories, many traumas, and many forgotten histories.
My work involves accumulation and discovery of inherited matrilineal trauma
and exploring methods of exorcising these traumas. Matrilineal investigation
has led me to discover 8 convicts on my mother’s side, who nobody in my family
knew about. These convict stories enrich my practice as I become connected to
my history and sense of place. My projects explore the feminist perspective of
motherhood, fertility, infertility, child loss, poverty, abuse, patriarchal systems of
oppression and erasure, inherited intergenerational matrilineal trauma, exorcism,
and resilience.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 23EVA
NILSSEN.
Body bits, 2018-20
Waste soft plastics
variable dimensions
‘Body bits’ was created from household soft plastic waste, woven whilst encircling
the artist’s body.
A plastic bag seems flimsy, disposable, and inconsequential. Yet when many are
gathered together and twisted into a firm twine, interlocked and held by the power
of their material qualities plastic bags become weighty.
A human sized void within the work looms - invisible, but palpable - like the many
hours of labour that went into its making. By transmuting feelings of suffocation
and frustration at the illogical position of being both a destroyer and a protector
of the environment, the artist mirrors the repetitive activities of everyday life
in which we as consumers intend to protect ourselves and our loved ones, yet
damage the environment and the climate in the process.
Eva Nilssen is a nipaluna/Hobart-based contemporary artist, whose practice
interrogates the strangeness of embodiment as a way to address broad issues
such as inequality and anthropogenic climate change. Eva uses video, still images,
and objects to conjure the uncanny echoes of everyday life, in order to address the
shadowy territory of our motivations and assumptions. Eva completed a Bachelor
of Fine Arts with First Class Honours at the Tasmanian College of the Arts for
which she received a University Medal.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 25GABBEE
STOLP.
Poison Oak, 2021
Lead sheet, she-oak seed pods, velvet, cotton thread
two objects: 5.8 x 13 x 2.4 cm; 4.5 x 9.5 x 2.5 cm
A valley thick with oaks: This is the meaning of the word ‘derwent’ in the Brythonic
Celtic language. A coloniser named the river I look at every day, after the one
flowing through his hometown in England. I wonder what led him to choose that
name for this river in 1793, the surrounding area not being thick with European
oak trees. Was it sheer unoriginality or perhaps purposefully territorial? I suspect
a bit of both.
The River Derwent was once thickly lined with she-oaks, completely unrelated to
the European oak. These native trees have largely given way to suburbs, farmland,
dams, and factories. I watch the river every day and think about the way it may
have once been and the way it must have changed. Despite all the change in and
around it, it shimmers and flows, breathes and bursts out into the ocean. It goes
on regardless.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 27GEORGIA
MORGAN.
This dream is real, 2020
Fine art inkjet print
120 x 80 cm
Georgia Morgan’s ‘This dream is real’(2020) is a documented site- specific
sculpture that references the Malaysian kampong (village) her mother grew
up in. The work is an exercise in making tangible things the artist has never
seen to exist.
Once erected by the Brisbane river, the lo-fi junk sculpture becomes a
fathoming device - superpositioning time, place and the parallel experiences
of a mother and daughter.
There are no photos of her mother’s kampong and so the artist solely relies on
her mother’s words and memories via Skype conversations. In the artist’s words:
“She is remembering and I am imagining.”
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 29GEORGIA
SPAIN.
Six Different Women, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
110 x 95 cm
The painting ‘Six Different Women’ was initially inspired by a scene describing
the maenads in Greek mythology – a group of women running wild and making
mischief in the forests and on the mountainside. My intention in this painting was
to depict a more tender moment between the women, as a nod to the power of
female relationships and female friendship.
I am interested in finding moments of abstraction within figurative painting and
using narrative and storytelling to examine the cultural, political and personal.
I am interested in the emotional and performative exchanges between people in
social and psychological spaces and my work often references literature, film and
popular culture.
Born in London, UK, Georgia Spain grew up in Melbourne and is now based in
Sandford, Tasmania. Spain is an early career painter who holds a Bachelor of Fine
Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. She has been involved in various group
and solo exhibitions and is represented by The Egg & Dart.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 31JANE
GIBLIN.
My Mother Judi, by My Self, 3, 2020
Ink and pigment on Arches
114 x 114 cm
After four years of research into my father’s family my mother Judi asked if I
might deal with hers. This work comes from a series of responses to her query.
For years she has suffered a range of illnesses, the recovery from which has
been undermined by a serious car accident. Her chronic pain is measured by her
determination, grit and her ever valiant desire to conceal. Occasionally she drops
her guard, and we see some truth.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 33KARIN
CHAN.
The Ascension, 2020
Archival print
65 x 110 cm
As a reflection on the emotional journey of living as a woman in this contemporary
world, my visual practice explores the creation of inhabitation of both physical
and psychological spaces. These spaces are where I can reflect, play and feel
empowered, away from worldly confinements.
The subjects chosen are objects and environments that relate to my emotional
world. They are the tools that I used to address my feelings of love, fear or
struggles. I am using them to create fictitious spaces as I release personal
emotions in search for healing and inner peace.
This work, ‘The Ascension’, contemplates the reconciliation of my emotions,
striving to overcome negative feelings hindering the full expression of, and
reception of, affection as a woman. It aims to deliver a mysterious and magical
space aiming to provide spiritual liberation and empowerment for myself to
continue loving in this real world.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 35KELLY
AUSTIN.
Stilled Composition 83, 2020
Porcelain, stoneware, timber, acrylic paint
120 x 38 x 32 cm
A small vessel stands witness near an enclosed, domed cylinder. Friction is
activated between the recognisable and the abstract.
My work explores illusion, the relationships of ceramic objects in compositions
and how an understanding of one object may influence the perception of another.
Propositions are constructed through placement and proximity, harmony and
discord. Vivid white pulls towards pale celadon, interrupted by orange and yellow.
Movement sits alongside stillness in a conversation with balance.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 37KELLY MARIE
SLATER.
Pumphouse Native Rock Road, 2020
Photographic print on aluminium substrate
91 x 61 cm
This river currently called ‘Mersey’ has become entwined with my life, as a
constant yet evolving presence in my thoughts. It has sustained life and spirit
in this region for millennia, shaping the land and the lives of the people who
depend upon it.
The river we know, the one we can see, is wide and placid. Subdued by dams and
bridges it meanders through broad agricultural valleys. But beyond our view there
is a river few of us know: A wild river running through deep gorges and forests.
This river is an embodiment of our society’s dependence on natural resources.
It is part of a fundamental earth system that humans cannot exist without. I want
to know this river more deeply, beyond the purely physical environment. I want to
explore the essence of the river in the seen and unseen places, the sublime and
the mundane.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 39KYLIE
ELKINGTON.
Passaggio Cunninghamii (Nothofagus cunninghamii,
Cradle Mountain), 2020
Oil on linen
diptych: 184 x 112 cm (panels: 92 x 112 cm each)
My depiction of landscape is often afocal, sometimes devoid of horizon, often
merging as if viewed from amongst, or from above. ‘Passaggio, cunninghamii,
(Nothofagus cunninghamii, Cradle Mountain)’ represents a continuation of
my exploration into the depiction of native plants, particularly those found in
Tasmania. Passaggio in classical music refers essentially to transitions in vocal
register, whilst maintaining an even timbre throughout. Similarly, Nothofagus
cunninghamii exhibits such behaviour in our forests. One of two from the
Nothofagus genus, native and proliferating in wilderness areas in Tasmania.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 41MEG
WALCH.
Orchidelirium, 2019-20
Oil and enamel on archival composite sign writing panel
90 x 150 cm
The origin of the word Orchid comes from the Ancient Greek ὄρχις (órkhis),
literally meaning “testicle“ because of the shape of the root. But they are actually
hermaphrodites. Orchids are resilient: they are improvisers and mimics.
They can self-fertilize and do impersonations to lure pollinators. They feed on
rotting matter.
They are shape-shifters who traffic in metaphor.
This orchid has evolved to become a futuristic bloom nourished by the
transformation of decay, composting ‘the old’ to give birth to ‘the new’.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 43MISH
MEIJERS.
Protest series: Resistance, 2021
Oil on reverse acrylic (Hinterglasmalerei)
mixed media on paper, framed
100 x 130 cm
I am particularly interested in the dynamic of groups, and especially when they
are moving co-operatively in the achievement of a common goal. The protest
series is an ongoing topic that I revisit in my work. This often manifests as
imagery taken from protests and other organised political actions. This particular
painting is an assemblage of recent marches across the globe on women s issues,
superimposed into one vocal conglomerate of resistance, to represent the power
of collectivity.
Mish Meijers is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice experiments in surface
tensions: how one material conforms or abrades against the matter of another.
Whether in actuality, or within conceptual content, she distorts the inherent
worth and significance of her objects with regard to popular culture, gender
determination and functionality, in an alchemic and at times discordant sensibility.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 45MOLLY
WOOF.
Seagull Sashimi, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
52 x 76 cm
Everyone and everything just want a piece, without having to think of
the consequences.
‘Seagull Sashimi’ explores the grotesque nature of greed and our
unconscious desire to consume, for this work I have drawn a tenuous
connection between these human traits and the observed behaviour of
seagulls who are always on the lookout for the next new edible. Often
fiercely fighting one another for a scrap, without the knowledge of what
is being offered to them, mouths open and ready to receive. Putting all
faith in the ones that have come before them, blindly hoping that yes,
it is a chip.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 47NANCY
MAURO-FLUDE.
Our Motherboards are Temples, 2021
Framed Giclée print on canvas, Paraphernalia
83 x 52 cm
‘Our Motherboards are Temples’ captures a glimpse into a familiar routine, an
embodied ritual with a personal computer. Amongst an ‘altar’ of paraphernalia, a
woman at her escritoire, navigates through a cosmography of analogue and digital
networks: weaving plans, communicating, and participating in a choreography of
post dramatic happenings.
An evocative object, the computer is an autopoietic device. Describing ‘subjective
side’ of people’s relationships with technology feminist philosopher Sherry Turkle
(2007) talks of computers as “intimate machines” that are “experienced as both
part of the self and of the external world.”
The techno-cultural imbroglios encountered by many of us in the over-reliance
on our computers to enable various capacities of work, life and socialising during
the C-19 pandemic compels us to renew questions around our relationship with
human and non human actors, interspecies entities and tangential assemblages
formed with corporeally distant and local agents. The work is also a curtsy to the
provenance of materiality and make up of contemporary computational devices -
the metals, particles, and molecules from which they extracted.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 49NICOLE
ROBSON.
August 28, 2021
Giclée print
80 x 120 cm
This work is from a series titled ‘Dirty Linen’. Airing your dirty linen is an
old idiom, exploring the idea of exposing intimate details from our private
lives, publicly.
I am interested in the idea of linen containing the residue of family secrets.
‘Airing’ your dirty linen is allowing public scrutiny of something that is personal.
The sculptural quality of the finished work supports a growing interest in
the hybridising of the photographic medium. While referencing historical wet
photography, this work is process driven, guided by the material qualities of the
printed surface of the fabric. I have always loved polaroids, they are instantly
an object and a photograph, you can hold it in your hand, a moment of time.
By transferring the images to fabric, just like a polaroid lift or transfer, these
works become photographs and objects.
The literal materiality of the work, coupled with the reproduction style, allows
for the images to be scrunched, folded and layered, further obscuring the hidden
truths and suggesting a degree of separation, something discarded or hidden
away in a draw.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 51ROSIE
HASTIE.
Andritz, 2021
Inkjet print on Platine fibre rag
77 x 105 cm
My anxious mind is always in desire of purity and absoluteness, something that
cannot and does not exist. Truth and deception lies at the heart of my work.
‘Andritz’ is a constructed space which can only be inhabited by the imagination,
and never actually exist.
‘Andritz’ explores photography’s ability to transport the viewer to a new place
though the experience of colour, light, texture and space with the use of merely
paper and the modern vaporiser.
The ‘paperscapes’ conjure feelings of wonder upon closer inspection but reveal
oddities in their detail. Similar to being awoken from a dream, the mind inhabits
a place that can only exist in your mind, only to be taken out of it and thrown back
into reality.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 53SELENA
DE CARVALHO.
Phases, 2020
Carbon ink, Vatnajökull glacier water, beeswax, plasterboard, charcoal and
23carat gold leaf
3 panels: 30 cm (diameter)
For this work, ‘Phases’, my material attention is focused on communicating
engagement with climate instability and sensitivity to place, embodying
uncertainty while also recognising deep-time cycles of change. I visited frontline
environmental sites of disturbance, both in lutruwita/Tasmania and abroad. I had
a sleeve made for my car exhaust, which I used to collect particulate matter to
create the black ink. Attempting to translate moving through the environment
as a contemporary human, my relationship with Earth, while at the same time
being complicit in activities that render the world (as we know it) vulnerable, this
carbon ink was mixed with water drawn from Vatnajökull, a melting Icelandic
glacier. Each ‘Phase’ is adorned with beeswax and white pigment sourced from
plasterboard found in skip bins, burnt surfaces of charcoal and 23carat gold leaf
gifted to me. Precious material fragments that combine hopelessness with the
inevitable ‘Phase’ of massive change we are living through. Blending poetic fiction
and reality, the project embraces a sense of hopelessness in order to more readily
accept inevitable extinction. The desire to reconcile my relationship with the world
around me is juxtaposed with that “world” being put at risk by humankind itself.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 55SHAUNA
MAYBEN.
Golden wreath, 2021
Wreath: Sterling silver oxidized, gold paint, 24ct gold leaf, plastic and a 0.35ct
GHsi natural diamond. Image: digital photograph
image: 120 x 80 cm, wreath: 50 x 50 cm
Throughout my practice I have explored jewellery and its function, not only to
adorn, but its artistic and intrinsic value emotionally and sentimentally.
Jewellery is one of the oldest modes of creative expression—it predates cave
painting by tens of thousands of years and throughout time has been used for
personal adornment, status, power and currency.
My piece is a continuation of a theme of work exploring the beauty of currency,
the exquisite detail, colours and subject matter, as well as the social complexity
of money.
This particular work is made up of 24ct gold $50 Australian notes in the form
of a wreath, the leaves in the shape of the Tasmanian blackwood wattle. Wreaths
were used traditionally in a ceremonial victory procession granted to generals
riding in a chariot drawn by four white horses. Behind the Victorious general
stood a slave, holding a golden crown of leaves over his head and whispering to
him throughout the procession, ‘Remember you are mortal’. This was to remind
the protagonist that everything is fleeting and that life can be fragile
and transitory even in triumph.
This work is contextualised to celebrate as well as question human achievements
that form a continuum from ancient cultures and traditions to today’s political,
social and environmental tapestry.
Image supplied by artist
2021 EXHIBITION womensartprizetas.com.au 57CONNECT
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