Art Almanac congratulates Peter Gouldthorpe and Josh Foley, winners of the 2021 Glover Prize People’s Choice Award and Children’s Choice Award, respectively.
Gouldthorpe’s intimate connection with the Tasmanian landscape results from over 20 years of painting the subject, often en plein air. While ‘enjoying the wild nip of winter’ at Cradle Mountain, he created his winning entry, Inside the Snowdome. Gouldthorpe reflects on his experience:
‘The classic shape of Cradle Mountain is imprinted in people’s minds as the view from Dove Lake. This is a view of its turreted western side in mid-winter, a sight unfamiliar to most. On this day, I was enjoying the wild nip of winter and the tracery of snow on the plants but disappointed not to be seeing anything beyond 50 metres. With an easing of the wind, came an opening of the scene, before it was swallowed once more by blizzard.’

Peter Gouldthorpe, Inside the Snowdome, oil on linen, 138 x 153cm
Gouldthorpe is a long-time Glover Prize entrant and has seen great success in the past. In addition to being a finalist in 2004, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, Gouldthorpe was awarded the People’s Choice in 2010 and the Children’s Choice in 2014.
The 2021 Glover Prize was on view from 6 to 14 March at the historic Falls Park Pavilion in Evandale, Tasmania, attracting over 8,000 people. These visitors included over 1,000 school students who took in the range of artworks on display as part of their art education. This number of students visiting the exhibition increased from last year, as the Glover Prize’s commitment to bringing the arts to the next generation continues to grow. These students helped select the 2021 Children’s Choice Award winner, Tasmanian-based artist Josh Foley for his entry titled Houdini (2021).

Josh Foley, Houdini, 2021, oil, acrylic, ink, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 153 x 185cm
Foley describes his artwork:
‘Some notes taken throughout the creation of this work include: Information age landscape. Detail is textual. Flying pigs… The sky is inhabited once more. The Tasmanian landscape is a computer program made in Inida (Spelling intentionally incorrect. The label on the roll of canvas, used for the work specified it was made in Inida and I thereby began to speculate on the significance of the fact that in some ways part of this landscape was manufactured in a factory in the Northern Hemisphere) This is a Frankenstein landscape of Tasmania, stitching together a gothic past, echoes of Gondwana land, the continuing juxtaposition of industrial schematics with ongoing colonial desires, and an emergent reality that is mediated and manipulated by exponentially increasing technological trickery with the communicative and physical distances of space and time shrinking as an outcome. Luddite self-portrait…’
Foley is also a Glover Prize regular, having won the prize in 2011 for his artwork Gee’s Lookout. In addition, Foley has featured as a Glover Prize finalist in 2005, 2015, 2016, and 2018.
The People’s Choice and Children’s Choice winners receive $3,000 and $500 prize money, respectively. Both of these awards are sponsored by Victoria’s Cosmetic Medical Clinic.
Established in 2004, The Glover Prize is Australia’s most prestigious landscape art prize™. The $50,000 prize is awarded for the work judged the best contemporary landscape painting of Tasmania completed in the previous 12 months. Landscape painting is defined in its broadest sense. The aim is to stimulate conversations about the meaning and possibilities expressed in the words landscape, painting, and Tasmania.