The ‘Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award supported by Little Creatures Brewing‘ is the richest and most prestigious printmaking prize in Australia.
This year’s judging panel included: Rebecca Beardmore, artist and Lecturer in Printmedia, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney; André Lipscombe, Curator, City of Fremantle Art Collection; and Franchesca Cubillo (ACT): Senior Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. From 300 entries to 56 finalists, the trio made their final selection.
Evan Pank, Keeping the Bastards Honest, 2016, screen print, spray paint, 130 x 500cm
Emerging Sydney artist Evan Pank was announced the winner of the coveted $16,000 first prize for his work Keeping the Bastards Honest (2016), to be acquired by the City of Fremantle Art Collection.
The print combines screen printing and spray painting techniques to depict the chaos and emotion of a football riot and explores the influence of sport and fan culture in Australian society and politics.
The judges praised the work for “making viewers aware of their own spectatorship, demanding the act of looking which results in deep and continual engagement.”
“The work presents the boundary between the festive and the fight in the apparent hostility unleashed by the crowd, making reference to the patriarchal fog and tribal culture of team sport,” they said.
“The images, sampled from various print sources are tied together in a suggestive fashion, heightening the intensity of gesture and reducing its politicised agency to mere spectacle and display.”
Valerie Sparks, Prospero’s Island South West, 2016, pigment inkjet print on paper, 140 x 220cm. Printed by JCP
Melbourne artist Valerie Sparks was awarded second prize and $6,000 for Prospero’s Island South West (2016), a digitally printed, moody montage creating an image of a wild dark sea, night sky and sailing ship which seems to reference grand narrative historical painting.
“The juxtaposition and play between areas of light and dark are both frightening and alluring,” said the judges. “In reference to the capture of historical narratives in painting is the dark acknowledgement of the ongoing trauma of the Aboriginal peoples and natural systems impacted upon following the arrival of the white man.”
Artists Nathan Beard (WA), David Frazer (VIC), Richard Lewer (VIC) and Andrew HC McDonald (WA) were also highly commended by the judges.
Fremantle Arts Centre
Until 12 November, 2017
Western Australia
