Gemma Smith wins the 2024 Mosman Art Prize

The 2024 Mosman Art Prize, a $70,000 acquisitive open painting prize, has been awarded to Sydney-based artist Gemma Smith for Pollen Prism, 2023. The winning work was made through the accumulation of many single layers applied on a daily basis while on a New York-based artist’s residency. Pollen Prism enters the celebrated Mosman Art Collection, a valuable and historic collection that surveys Australian painting.

Smith says: “Pollen Prism was made in response to my time at Art Omi: Artists’ Residency program, where the expansive lush green of the New York rural summer around the studio was overwhelming. Here the methodology was complicated by the local conditions in my open, airy studio known as the Corn Crib – a place where corn was once hung to air-dry. The heat and humidity of high summer meant the paint would tack up quickly, but would ultimately be slow to dry. The resident carpenter bees in the ceiling shared their bright yellow pollen (and occasional leg) with the painting.”

Smith is a noted painter whose abstract paintings and sculptures explore the interaction between colour and surface, intention and chance. Through her explorations of colour theory, pictorial depth and sculptural form, Smith has developed a body of abstract work that both playfully and seriously investigates the shifting pictorial plane.

Gemma Smith, Pollen Prism, 2023, synthetic polymer paint on linen

“Smith undertakes glorious explorations of colour and gesture. These are governed by rigorous protocols that Smith uses to direct each painting, ensuring that every work will be fresh and surprising, including for the painter. Essentially, Smith’s paintings are exercises in inspired perversity. Pollen Prism is an ode to sensuality; made during a residency in upstate New York, in high summer, it testifies to the season‘s warmth with its rich colours, and the way it registers the exact conditions of its making. Splendid, confident, and affirmative, Pollen Prism holds its divergent energies together in an unlikely, and wonderful, tension.” – Julie Ewington, 2024 Mosman Art Prize Judge.

Additional awards:

Margaret Olley Commendation Award, $10,000
Khaled Sabsabi, Popaganda (part A & part B), 2024

Guy Warren Emerging Artist Award (35 years and under), $3,000
Jacquie Meng, playing pool, 2024

Allen Gamble Award, $5,000
Nick Santoro, 5G Panel, 2024

The 2024 Mosman Art Prize attracted 1,617 entries from across Australia, with eighty-eight paintings selected for the finalist exhibition on view at Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman NSW 2088, until 6 October 2024. Public programs include artist talks Wednesday 14 August and 11 September, 6–8pm.

mosmanartgallery.org.au

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