2014 Rick Amor Drawing Prize Winner Announced

The Art Gallery of Ballarat has announced that the winner of the $12,000 2014 Rick Amor Drawing Prize is Melbourne artist Gina Kalabishis.

Kalabishis’s winning entry, Untitled, pastel on velour paper, will be purchased by the Art Gallery of Ballarat joining the rich collection of drawings held at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, including works by Eugene Von Guerard, Norman Lindsay, David Davies, Rupert Bunny, Arthur Boyd, Sid Nolan, John Brack, Fred Williams, Peter Booth, Brett Whiteley and Rick Amor himself.

The award was judged by Alisa Bunbury, Curator – Prints & Drawings, National Gallery of Victoria. Bunbury states: “It is an exciting but daunting task to select a single winner from such a varied and accomplished group of works, given the range of subject matter and skilful exploration of styles and techniques, ranging from the meticulous to the expressively gestural, the realistic to the fantastic, the contemplative to the humorous. A number of works were of remarkably high standard, each with distinct qualities, but I have selected as the winner a monochromatic pastel drawing by Gina Kalabashis. It is quietly compelling, showing an arrangement of vegetation, drawn solely in white, that emerges from the black surface of the paper like a ghostly form. It responds to ideas of the Dutch still life genre and to Japanese ikebana, but by omitting colours, so integrally associated with flowers, also evokes the idea of the memento mori, the visual reminder that death approaches, and is unavoidable.”

Art Gallery of Ballarat Director Gordon Morrison said: “The third Rick Amor Drawing Prize has attracted an impressive range of works from across Australia, all of which were in different styles and media making it a challenge for Alisa Bunbury”.

“For many Australian artists drawing is an important component of their creativity and this biennial acquisitive prize has become a highly anticipated event in this nation’s art calendar,” he said.

 

2014 Rick Amor Drawing Prize
Art Gallery of Ballarat
1 February to 23 March, 2014
Victoria

 

Gina Kalabishis, Untitled, 2013, pastel on velour paper, 70 x 50cm
© The artist, courtesy Catherine Asquith Gallery

HELP DESK:
subscribe@artistprofile.com.au | PH: +612 8227 6486