Harrie Fasher | 2018 Rio Tinto Sculpture Award recipient

NSW artist Harrie Fasher was announced the winner of this year’s $50,000 Rio Tinto Sculpture Award at the opening of the 14th annual Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe, for her abstract steel masterpiece, Transition (2016).

Rising from the dunes of Cottesloe Beach, the sculpture depicts an Icelandic mythological horse moving between worlds, reflective of the creative process; ‘Transition embodies everything that it is to be an artist – dreams, struggles and persistence,’ said Fasher.

Harrie Fasher, Transition, 2016 – Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2018. Photograph: Garth Carr

The work will be the third sculpture acquired by Rio Tinto, a major sponsor of Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe, and will be gifted to the City of Busselton for permanent outdoor placement. Adding to the south west district’s public art collection, Fasher’s Transition joins previous winners Harsha Durugadda’s Column of Sound (2017) and Dale Miles’ Parallel Thinking Space (2016).

Harrie Fasher, Transition, 2016 –  Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2018. Photograph: Clyde Yee

Rio Tinto’s contribution represents one of numerous awards and grants resulting from its collaboration with Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe. The Rio Tinto Sculpture Inside Award of $5,000 was awarded to Geoff Overheu from Gingin, WA for his bronze work Swarm (2017) at the opening of Sculpture Inside, an indoor exhibition of sculpture by exhibiting artists and selected invited artists. The Andrea Stretton Memorial Invitation of $5,000 to exhibit at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2018 was awarded to Taiwanese artist Tang Wei Hsu for his work Jade Petals.

Fremantle-based artist Sally Stoneman received the Western Australian Sculptor Scholarship of $10,000 for her sculpture Seed (2017). Donated by Gavin Bunning & Julienne Penny, the scholarship supports travel, study and the advancement of the artist’s career. It also includes an invitation to exhibit at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.

To view these works alongside those of 70 Australian and international artists, Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2018 will be running for eighteen days during March.

Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe
2 to 19 March, 2018
Western Australia

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