The Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award is a biennial award promoting excellence and innovation in the field of art on paper and aims to elevate the status of works on paper while supporting and promoting artists working with this medium. In 2023, Hazelhurst received entries from over 900 artists across Australia with works demonstrating the materiality of paper, its versatility, and the possibilities of paper as a medium.
Selected from a field of eighty-two finalists, David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton were announced as the overall winners of the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award 2023 winners for their work titled Eternal Return, 2023. The Sydney-based artists have been awarded $15,000.
David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, Eternal Return, 2023, sculpture (with kinetic model components), 160 × 200 × 200cm approx. Courtesy the artist and Hazelhurst Art Centre, Sydney
Artists statement:
Two towers of generic cardboard boxes stand in the gallery. On close inspection, small openings reveal interior scenes utilising mirrors to create the illusion of endless space. The first scene is based on familiar visions of a factory production line or online shopping behemoth, with dozens of cardboard boxes circling continuously. In the second, a vast interior space is crowded by endless piles of boxes awaiting an unknown fate.
Eternal Return is a physical manifestation of the artists’ interest in the structural drivers of production, consumption, and waste – and their discomfort with their own complicity in these unsustainable cycles. The project evokes the sense of disquiet and overwhelm that has come to define our contemporary era.
David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, Eternal Return, 2023, sculpture (with kinetic model components), 160 × 200 × 200cm approx. Courtesy the artist and Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Sydney
Guest judge, artist Deborah Kelly said the field of finalist works was so strong she elected to focus on works that engaged with paper as a medium and considered its cultural and practical significance, and that the three winning works she selected were outstanding examples of this. “My criteria was I wanted works that thought about paper itself as a medium that didn’t just use it as a vehicle, but that really engaged with the material, the stuff of paper, and thought about its weight in culture and its use,” Kelly said. “The three works that I chose were so outstanding, I thought in their attention to this stuff, to the weight of the stuff in culture and in history.”
Additional awards:
The Young & Early Career Artist Award of $5,000 – Jenna Lee, Grass tree – growing together, 2022
The Local Artist Award of $5,000 – Christopher Lawrie, WHITE HISTORY (‘An introduction to Australian History’ by A. G. L. Shaw and H. D. Nicolson), 2023
The installation crew also chose their favourite for the Preparator’s Residency Award, which has this year been awarded to Oliver Fontany for Oli at Lane Cove River 1, 2022. The artist receives a four-week residency at Hazelhurst Art Centre, Sydney.
Visitors to the exhibition can vote for The People’s Choice Award of $1,000, which will be announced on Monday 13 November 2023.
The Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award 2023 finalist exhibition is on view at Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Sydney, until 12 November.
