We congratulate Melbourne-based artist Laresa Kosloff on the announcement of her work titled La Perruque (2018), as the winning piece in the $20,000 Guirguis New Art Prize (GNAP) for 2019.
Kosloff says she is ‘absolutely delighted to receive the Guirguis Prize, which has so much respect within our field. Not only is it a tremendous honour but so helpful in a practical sense, as it will enable me to put even more resources and time into my art practice.’
‘There are so many exceptional artists in this year’s exhibition and I’m very excited to be showing my work alongside them. Thank you to Mark Guirguis for his generous patronage and belief in contemporary art,’ she continued.
Laresa Kosloff, La Perruque (video still), 2018, 4K video, duration: 4 min. Voice actors: Damian Walshe-Howling and Soula Alexander. Courtesy the artist, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria and Federation University, Post Office Gallery, Victoria
Kosloff’s La Perruque, which means ‘wearing the wig’ was selected from 16 finalists for the 2019 GNAP award now in its fourth iteration. La Perruque is a short film made entirely out of commercial stock footage purchased online produced for corporate advertising. Using this footage Kosloff has reconstructed a fictional tale of an office worker secretly trying to write a novel during work hours in a tongue-in-cheek story created with a sense of intelligent and mischievous wit.
‘Laresa is a worthy winner having been dedicated to her practice over many years and creating a work that is intelligently structured and steeped in satire, epitomising what we all either know or experience at work or in office life. By her clever collaging of characters, editing and story adaptation, Laresa has created an impressive fictional and insightful work that by way of its very construction cleverly illustrates and articulates aspects of Australian culture,’ said Shelley Hinton, Curator Federation University’s Post Office Gallery.
‘A prize of this magnitude is significant in providing the opportunity for contemporary artists to develop their artistic practice,’ and ‘The University is again very grateful to Mark and Carolyn Guirguis for their generosity supporting Australian contemporary artists and to the Art Gallery of Ballarat for partnering with the University to present this important exhibition and prize in Ballarat. We are also very fortunate to be able to bring important Australian artists to Ballarat as a result of the Prize,’ she continued.
The work of the 15 finalists; Karen Mills and Neridah Stockley (NT), Janet Fieldhouse, Grace Lillian Lee, Naomi Hobson, Shirley Macnamara and Claudia Moodoonuthi (QLD), Amanda Davies and Tricky Walsh (TAS), Nicola Smith and Caroline Garcia (NSW), Marie Hagerty and Raquel Ormella (ACT), Benjamin Armstrong and Matt Hinkley (VIC), along with Kosloff will be on display in the GNAP exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ballarat and the School of Arts, Post Office Gallery, Ballarat until 2 June 2019.
GNAP showcases artists whose work reflects on historical and contemporary influences; exploring a range of ideas from Australian cultural and social history, self-portraiture and identity to theories surrounding the fourth dimension, expressed through video, painting, textiles, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking and installation.
