The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award is Australia’s most prestigious national award for prints and artists’ books. Now in its 38th year, this exhibition and award presents the best in contemporary Australian print media and charts the developments and shifting boundaries of this dynamic medium.
This year, masterful and highly-intricate screen prints, lithographs and linocuts sit side-by-side with cutting-edge 3D sculptural printing and digitally-printed photographic works as artists vie for the $15, 000 Major Acquisitive prize and the honour of this national award. Encouraging a redefinition of what print media is and conceptual responses to printmaking, the award features works by both emerging and established artists from around the country.
“This year’s award continues the variation, energy and commitment to technique that have become synonymous with its prestigious 38 year history,” FAC Curator Dr Ric Spencer says. “The award is unique in that it situates established artists alongside what is this year a number of emerging and cross-disciplinary artists, culminating in an exhibition which is critical, accessible and adventurous.”
In July, judges Matthew Ngui (Artist and Artistic Director, Singapore Biennale 2011), Justin Trendall (Artist, Senior Lecturer Printmedia, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney) and Maria Zagala (Associate Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs, Art Gallery of South Australia) began whittling down the 283 entered works. They have selected 50 works from around the country for this year’s exhibition, with 19 from WA artists.
The winners will be announced on opening night Friday 20 September, 6.30pm.
Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award 2013
21 September to 17 November, 2013
Alison Alder, Anyone Can Do It, 2013, screen print on paper, 135 x 150cm
