The Wallace Art Awards have been announced. The winning artworks include oil paintings, photographs, timber and ceramic sculptures, and a “counting frame for future beings”.
Russ Flatt (AZ #61) has won the Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award with his photographic image Kōruru (knucklebones). The judges noted its “haunting emotionality” and described it as “an image which returns scrutiny of it with an increasing sense of tension” and “a worthy winner.”
Eight artists have been recognised in this year’s awards. The winners were chosen by a panel of five judges who have also all been prior Wallace Award Paramount Award winners: Sara Hughes, Bob Jahnke, Gregor Kregar, Jae Hoon Lee (AZ #83) and Judy Millar (AZ #80). Due to the on-going pandemic cash prizes have replaced the usual international travel awards.
The First Runner-up award winner is Virginia Leonard (AZ #68) for her large scale ceramic works titled Cripple. Leonard says the works are self portraits that “stand in representations of the body. The forms are hand-built, precarious, threatening to fall over at any given moment, an intentional gesture that evokes the fragility of the body becoming undone.”
Wanda Gillespie’s Jury Award winning work A Counting Frame for Future Beings is made of wood, brass, beads, coconut shell, and a table. She says the abacus is a recurring theme in her work and “in the wake of Covid-19, my thoughts are drawn more on the economic systems we find ourselves inextricably a part of.”
The other winners are Darryn George, Glen Hayward, Martin Basher, Sam Harrison, and Maryrose Crook. A People’s Choice Award, worth $750, will be announced at the end of the touring exhibition of finalists and winners.
The award winners and travelling finalists exhibition is at:
The Wallace Arts Centre, Auckland, 15 September – 15 November 2020
Pātaka Art+Museum, Porirua, 29 November 2020 – 28 February 2021
Wallace Gallery, Morrinsville, March – May 2021
Images
First Runner-up Award: Winner Virginia Leonard, Cripple, 2020, Clay, lustre and resin, 945 x 540 x 530mm
Jury Award Winner: Wanda Gillespie, A Counting Frame for Future Beings, 2020, Wood, brass, beads, coconut shell, table, 1250 x 800 x 1200mm
Wallace Arts Trust Second Award Winner: Darryn George, Mara #26, 2020, Oil pastel and acrylic on canvas, 1570 x 2180 x 55mm
Wallace Arts Trust Third Award Winner: Glen Hayward, At night at the museum, 2020, Paint on timber, 180 x 450 x 550mm