Across Australia each year, up to 70% of art school graduates are female. However, when it comes to gallery exhibitions and prizes, female artists represent substantially less than half. In 2014, State museums showed just 34% of female artists amongst their collection – The Countess Report, 2016, Elvis Richardson, Cruthers Art Foundation, NAVA
The annual Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize attempts to redress this imbalance by inspiring generations of female Australian artists and fostering emerging artists through its unique prize structure which includes a mentoring element.
Angela Tiatia, The Fall, still
This year, the competition attracted 821 entrants from across the country who responded to the 2018 prize theme ‘Resilience’. The 96 finalists came from every state and territory.
The winner of the $35,000 Professional Artist category is Sydney multimedia artist Angela Tiatia, for her video The Fall which is inspired by written and oral accounts of survivors of World War II. It captures a multitude of real life accounts as war escalates and society unravels around them.
Amber Koroluk-Stephenson, Marooned
The winner of the $5,000 Emerging Artist category is Tasmanian painter Amber Koroluk-Stephenson, for her oil on linen work, Marooned. The painting questions traditional perceptions of the Australian landscape to reflect on the layered complexities of identity, place and belonging.
The prize judges are the Prize Patron, award-winning public space sculptor, Jennifer Turpin, Visual Arts Curriculum Manager at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Kathryn Hendy-Ekers, and Ravenswood’s Head of Visual Art, Edwina Palmer.
