2015 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award

 

Shepparton Art Museum is delighted to announce the five shortlisted artists who will present exhibitions in the 2015 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award. With a $50,000 prize awarded to one of the artists this August, the biennial Award is the premier Australian ceramic art prize.

The 2015 shortlisted artists are; Penny Byrne, Ruth Hutchinson, Sanné Mestrom, Adam John Cullen and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran.

The 2015 Australian Ceramic Art Award attracted 100 Australian artists from exemplary master potters through to contemporary artists exploring ceramic traditions and the medium’s potential for intervention in a range of aesthetic and political endeavours. It was a fantastic field of applicants and proposed exhibitions.

Each of the winning artists will be commissioned to produce an exhibition of new work for display at SAM from 22 August to 22 November 2015. The artists will also travel to Shepparton to give presentations and run master-classes for local and visiting artists on the celebratory opening and announcement day of 22 August.

The Award was judged by SAM Director Kirsten Paisley and Rebecca Frances Coates. Rebecca is an independent curator and writer. She lectures in Art History and Art Curatorship, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne and was awarded a PhD in Art History from the University of Melbourne in 2013.  She is Associate Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, where she has curated over forty exhibitions, and worked extensively as a curator in Australia and overseas.

SAM Director Kirsten Paisley said: “The five shortlisted artists are exemplary artists, each building and contributing to the use of ceramics as a medium. Their practices span historical cultural themes, revisit modernist concerns, delve into social issues and moreover each challenge our understanding of ceramic art and its positioning within contemporary practice. In this suite of five exhibitions ceramics as a process medium, a collaborative medium collided with other materials and as a material with technical limitations and extraordinary capabilities its own right will be evidenced. I congratulate each of the artists for being shortlisted for the 2015 Australian ceramic art award and look forward to working with them.”

Rebecca Coates said: “This year’s entrants provided rich and varied work.  Within a contemporary context, each of the five artists selected encourages us to rethink ceramics as a form. Their themes include creative genius and identity, kitsch and global warfare. They repurpose technical materials such as dental porcelain, and revise Modernist art histories. Each of the artists extends our understanding of what ceramics can be, and in turn, how we live and work.”

Shepparton Art Museum
22 August to 22 November, 2015
Victoria

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