Adelaide-based artist Greg Johns is the winner of the prestigious acquisitive McClelland Award 2012 announced yesterday, Sunday 18 November. He has been awarded a cash prize of $100,000 for his work At the centre (There is nothing).
At the centre (There is nothing) along with the 34 finalist Survey sculptures (35 in total) will be displayed along the picturesque sculpture trail which winds its way through a variety of natural bush landscape and grasslands making it both an art and nature experience.
McClelland Award 2012 judge, Deborah Edwards, Senior Curator, Australian Art, AGNSW said ‘this year the winner of the McClelland Sculpture Award highlights the traditional values of modernist sculptural production. Greg Johns, with an active career spanning four decades, submits to the 2012 Survey one of his most significant works to date. Long preoccupied with the form and meanings of the mandala, Johns has created a commanding vitalist sculpture which also clearly references the rivers and hills of his South Australian environment – and which successfully sustains the radically different conceptions of the work in the round. Conceived as being in active relationship with the natural environment, At the centre (There is nothing) will find its ideal placement at the McClelland Sculpture Park’.
Robert Lindsay, Director, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery said of the winning work, ‘The geometry of Greg John’s work relates to the eastern mysticism of the mandala and the repeating fractal patterns in nature, while the rusted steel colour evokes association with the central Australian desert. He is one of Australia’s foremost sculptors who, with great imagination and ambition, has consistently explored through his steel sculptures themes of the figure and the landscape’.
Melbourne based artist Christopher Langton is the winner of the inaugural McClelland Achievement Prize (MAP) and was awarded a cash prize of $30,000 for his work Away with the fairies 2012.
An additional new and exciting award, the McClelland Achievement Prize (MAP), has been established as part of the McClelland Sculpture Survey. With a cash prize of $30,000 (non-acquisitive) MAP also includes a solo exhibition of the artist’s work at McClelland during the time of the subsequent McClelland Sculpture Survey in 2014. MAP will be an ongoing addition to the McClelland Award and the Frankston City People’s Choice Award.
Each of the McClelland Sculpture Survey participants will also be eligible for the $20,000 Frankston City People’s Choice Award, which is judged by visitors to the exhibition. The most popular work and winner of the Frankston City People’s Choice Award will be announced June 2013.
The McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award was established in 2003 and quickly established itself as the most influential and prestigious exhibition of outdoor public sculpture in Australia. It brings together a wide range of sculptors from emerging, mid-career and established artists, working in wide range of styles and different media. It truly encapsulates the best of current sculpture practice.
The McClelland Sculpture Survey & Award 2012
McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery
Melbourne
November 18, 2012 to July 14, 2013
Greg Johns, At the centre (There is nothing), 2009, ironstone, 130 x 130 x 70cm
