Congratulations to the winners of the Grace Cossington Smith biennial art award 2021: Nadia Hernández, recipient of the acquisitive $15,000 prize for her textile work titled Dulce de lechoza verde (procedimiento)/Green papaya sweet (procedure), 2021; Alice Wormald, early-career artist award $2,500 non-acquisitive for her painting titled Turning in Circles, 2020; and David Collins, local (Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai area, Sydney) artist award $2,500 non-acquisitive for his diptych titled Hot Burn, 2021.
This year’s judging panel comprised Katrina Cashman, Gallery Manager & Senior Curator at the National Art School; Oliver Watts, Senior Curator of Artbank, Sydney and artist. Together, they felt the submissions were a barometer of contemporary art practice revealing a broad brushstroke of two-dimensional media and styles, with some works challenging traditional notions of contemporary artmaking.
Nadia Hernández, Dulce de lechoza verde (procedimiento)/Green papaya sweet (procedure), 2021, cotton, linen, and corduroy on linen textile, 145 × 100cm. Courtesy the artist and Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Sydney
Mérida-born, Sydney-based Hernández explores her personal and political connections to Venezuala, connecting with memories and narratives that she articulates through her colours, shapes and textures and the poetry of her titles. Judges Cashman and Watts commented:
“Dulce de lechoza verde (procedimiento)/Green papaya sweet (procedure) is a beautiful textile work that harks back to Hernández’s heritage, considering ideas of diaspora and food connecting culture and family. It is full of life, tenderness and is a very loving work that represents the connections we all need now.”
Hernández is represented by STATION, Melbourne and Sydney.
Alice Wormald, Turning in Circles, 2020, oil on linen, 140 × 110cm. Courtesy the artist and Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Sydney
Wormald creates paintings that develop from a process of image collection and collage that she fragments and reinterprets. Her compositions are layered, combining a softness of brushmark and hard-edge linear patterns creating an illusion and play on visual perspective. Of the winning work, the judges said:
“Turning in Circles is a contemporary painting that revels in artifice, with her playing with and remaking of found images. It is a work full of contrasts – inside/ outside, natural/artificial and a variety of interesting viewpoints.”
Wormald is represented by Gallery 9, Sydney.
David Collins, Hot Burn, 2021, oil on canvas, 122 × 200cm (diptych). Courtesy the artist and Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Sydney
Collins’ life on Dangar Island in the Hawkesbury River allows him to live with nature and connect fully with both the water and the land. He has a studio amongst the trees, overlooking the water, and frequently paints and draws en plein air. His view of the landscape with his broad washes of oil paint and calligraphic line ensure a personal and unique style. The judges remarked:
“Hot Burn is an evocative, well observed landscape capturing a strong connection to place. Collins poetically responds to the land through colour, and beautiful glazes provide a sense of depth, heat and refracted light. Also revealed are suggestions of the devasting fires we so recently experienced.”
Collins is represented by Defiance Gallery, Sydney.
Submissions were invited from Australian artists over 18 years of age for original work in any two-dimensional media in response to the theme ‘Making Connections’. From over 425 entries from around the country, works by 45 leading and emerging Australian artists were selected as finalists.
The Grace Cossington Smith biennial art award 2021 finalists are Louise Allerton (NSW), Kim Anderson (VIC), Susan Andrews (NSW), Suzanne Archer (NSW), Dhinawan Baker (NSW), Ed Bartok (NSW), Deborah Beck (NSW), Max Berry (NSW), Lee Bethel (NSW), Amber Boardman (NSW), Kevin Chin (VIC), David Collins (NSW), Yvette Coppersmith (VIC), Jedda-Daisy Culley (NSW), Adrienne Doig (NSW), Chris Dolman (NSW), Nikki Easterbrook (NSW), Sarah Edmondson (NSW), David Fairbairn (NSW), Emily Galicek (NSW), Sophie Lee Georgas (NSW), Liron Gilmore (NSW), Eliza Gosse (NSW), Nadia Hernández (NSW), Nicole Kelly (NSW), Martin King (VIC), Belem Lett (NSW), Steve Lopes (NSW), Tom Loveday (NSW), Paula Mahoney (VIC), Lisa McKimmie (NSW), Bridgette Mcnab (VIC), Anh Nguyen (NSW), Amanda Penrose Hart (NSW), Katya Petetskaya (NSW), Julien Playoust (NSW), Rhonda Pryor (NSW), Cate Riley (NSW), Peter Sharp (NSW), Wendy Sharpe (NSW), Sally Stokes (NSW), Elefteria Vlavianos (NSW), Barbara Weir (NT), Agus Wijaya (NSW), Alice Wormald (VIC).
Grace Cossington Smith biennial art award 2021 finalist exhibition is on view at Grace Cossington Smith Gallery in Wahroonga, Sydney, from 5 to 16 February. The winners share a three-week group exhibition at Grace Cossington Smith Gallery in 2023.
