The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) have announced the award recipients of the Hatched: National Graduate Show 2024 Dr Harold Schenberg Arts Awards, which totals $50,000 (the largest prize pool for emerging artists in Australia) – awarded to exceptional Hatched artists to encourage their work and further invest in the development of their careers.
In 2024, the prestigious prize was awarded to Lily Trnovsky (Adelaide Central School of Art) for her ceramic works I loved the weight I had to bear and Sweet and bitter in a breath, Vedika Rampal (UNSW Sydney) for her installation Pilgrimage II, and Kate McGuinness (Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney) for her video work I like long walks on Parramatta Road.
Lily Trnovsky, Hatched: National Graduate Show 2024, installation view, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), 2024. Photograph: Dan McCabe
Hatched Curatorial Fellow Brent Harrison said, “Their works capture local and global concerns and are entwined with personal narratives of love, loss, pilgrimage and humour. These three artists have bright futures with the awards assisting them to pursue their careers as artists.”
Chained together and laden with padlocks, Trnovsky’s pair of sculptures – I loved the weight I had to bear and Sweet and bitter in a breath – were inspired by the love lock bridges found in cities around the world. Exploring the emotional impact of love and death on human relationships, Trnovsky seeks to immortalise these intangible feelings into physical objects.
Vedika Rampal, Pilgrimage II, 2023, Hatched: National Graduates Show 2024, installation view, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), 2024. Photograph: Dan McCabe. Courtesy the artist and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Western Australia
Rampal’s Pilgrimage II is a large-scale installation made in response to her visit to the Ajanta Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Maharashtra, India (regarded as the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art). Transferring photographs and diary entries onto large copper and red acrylic sheets, Rampal explores the impacts of colonial intervention on the early art forms.
Kate McGuinness, I like long walks on Parramatta Road, 2023, Hatched: National Graduate Show 2024, installation view, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), 2024. Photograph: Dan McCabe. Courtesy the artist and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Western Australia
Traversing the boundary between video art and documentary filmmaking, McGuinness creates idiosyncratic films that explore unlikely and everyday places. I like long walks on Parramatta Road follows a woman with red hair, walking along this busy Sydney strip, meeting the people who frequent it. Intimate testimonials from locals and small business owners provide insight into the history of the road and their relationships to it.
Since 1992, Hatched has been a vital platform for early-career artists – exhibiting the work of over 1,400 art school graduates from across the country – with notable alumns including Archie Moore, Julie Gough and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran.
The 2024 judging panel comprised Dr Theo Costantino, Director, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of Western Australia; Tarryn Gill, artist and PICA Board Member, Perth; and Hannah Mathews, Director/CEO, PICA.
The Hatched National Graduate Show 2024 exhibition showcases seventy-six works by twenty-two artists from twenty-one art schools, on show at PICA, Perth WA 6000, from 3 August to 13 October.
