Grace Cossington Smith art award 2014 Finalists

2014 art award

2 to 25 October 2014

The Grace Cossington Smith Gallery and Abbotsleigh are pleased to launch the Grace Cossington Smith art award.

This national acquisitive contemporary art prize, sponsored by Abbotsleigh, commemorates one of its alumni, Grace Cossington Smith, who is known as a pioneer of modernist painting in Australia.

Artists are invited to submit original two dimensional artworks reflecting the theme of Making Connections, a theme that relates to ideas about the pratice of Grace Cossigton Smith. The winning entry will form part of the Gallery’s permanent collection.

Judges and Selectors

Judge: Rachel Kent, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney

Selection panel: artist Janet Laurence and curator Nicholas Tsoutas

The Grace Cossington Smith art award winner will receive $15,000 and finalists will each be awarded $1,000.

Finalists’ artworks will be displayed at the Grace Cossington Smith Gallery at Abbotsleigh, Wahroonga from 2 to 25 October 2014.

Entries were received from around the country from artists who created two dimensional artworks responding to the theme of Making Connections. The selectors acknowledged that creating a shortlist of only 15 finalists from more than 300 submissions made the selection process difficult. The diversity of the submissions revealed great rigour and quality from artists at differing stages in their career.

Finalists:

Susan Andrews , Kevin Chin, Julia Davis, Ella Dreyfus, Jacquelene Drinkall , Cherine Fahd, Sara Freeman, Adrienne Gaha , Sarah Goffman , André Hemer, Petrina Hicks, Pollyxenia Joannou, Margaret Loy Pula, Wendy Sharpe, Senye Shen

2014 art award Winner

The winner of the Grace Cossington Smith biennial art award for 2014 is Margaret Loy Pula

Margaret Loy Pula:

Anatye Bush Potato
acrylic on linen
150 x 150 cm
Courtesy Muk Muk Fine Art

Margaret paints ‘Anatye’ or Bush Potato dreaming which is portrayed using a series of fine, detailed dots.
Her painting is an aerial view of the growth pattern of the plant. The centre cross is the plant, the vines send out tendrils into the soil and this is where the potato (or bush yam) begins to grow. The bush potato vine grows after the rains. The women go out to collect the potato.
Once collected they are cooked in the hot coals of the fire. “This painting is about my culture, my family. That’s my father’s dreaming. This is from my father’s country, that country is called ‘Unjangola’. That is north of Utopia, not too far but really desert country”.
Margaret Loy Pula hails from an incredibly distinguished artistic family. She is the daughter of well known Utopian artist Kathleen Petyarre.

2014 GCS art award Finalists exhibition

Photography copyright Richard Glover