Art Almanac congratulates Gerwyn Davies, winner of this year’s $20,000 Olive Cotton Award for photographic portraiture for his work Replica.
“In Replica, I engage A.I. imaging technology to fabricate a landscape of simulated Roman ruins amid which, a body double rests against a Gold Coast replica of David; this layering of counterfeits reflects my ongoing interest in photographic fictions and synthetic selves.
While conventionally the photographic portrait is anticipated to reveal something of a subject to a viewer, I am drawn instead to the potentials of queer representational in/visibility and the performance of photographic dis/appearing acts.
My figure is routinely buried beneath costumes whose embellished surfaces mutually entice yet resist interrogation while the image terrain is manicured, foreshortened, made to emit an implausible glow. Twin states of seduction and denial allow me to pass before the camera un/seen.”
– Gerwyn Davies, 2023
Gerwyn Davies, Replica, 2023, archival pigment print. Acquired as the Winner of the 2023 Olive Cotton Award. Courtesy the artist
Davies’ Replica was selected as the winning portrait from a field of seventy-two finalists, including emerging and established photographers from around Australia. This year’s judge, artist, curator and critic Dr Daniel Mudie Cunningham noted that “hiding is not something we associate with portraiture. A conventional portrait requires a subject’s presence and disclosure to connect with the world.”
“Gerwyn Davies is keenly aware that revelation is central to portraiture and photography, and in Replica he engages with queer visibility politics to interrogate what it means to be seen and unseen, to appear and disappear. Camouflaged within an inventive tableau made from costuming, props, and partially harnessing new AI technologies, he creates a clever and joyous image that speaks to art history and narratives of place and time, with conceptual and aesthetic rigour.”
Ferne Millen, No Labels Required, 2023, C-type print. Acquired as the Director’s Choice of the 2023 Olive Cotton Award. Courtesy the artist
Mudie Cunningham also Highly Commended Vedika Rampal’s My mother dreams of Ghalib and Meng-Yu Yan’s Another Ruin VI. And thanks to the generosity of the Friends of Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre Inc., Ferne Millen’s No Labels Required, a portrait of Dr Todd Fernando, was acquired for the Gallery’s collection, with Director Susi Muddiman OAM awarding it the 2023 Director’s Choice.
Muddiman said, “This work grabbed my attention. The composition and narrative is strong. In creating a photo shoot for her portrait, Ferne frames a sense of potent, positive change. This is a portrait of a proud subject, within a portrait of our society on the brink of hopeful change.”
Muddiman also singled out the following works as deserving special attention: Stephen Dupont’s You should take it this way! 2022: A portrait of David Field; Dane Beesley’s Home; Rampal’s My mother dreams of Ghalib; Matthew Thorne’s Warren Ellis in his garden in Paris 2022; Jaka Adamic’s Chaos/Portrait of Toby; Riste Andrievski’s William Yang; Andrea Francolini’s I am what I am; and Gary Grealy’s Jude Rae_Artist.
Full list of finalists: artgallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au/PrizesAndAwards/OliveCotton
The 2023 Olive Cotton Award finalist exhibition is on view at Tweed Regional Gallery, New South Wales, until 24 September 2023, where visitors can cast their own vote in the $500 People’s Choice Award.
Gerwyn Davies is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney/Berlin.
