The 2016 theme ‘The Resurrection’ has inspired over 260 artists from across Australian in painting, sculpture, photography and new media to enter the 2016 Mandorla Art Award for contemporary religious art is Australia’s most significant thematic religious art prize, attracting some of the country’s finest artists since its 1985 inception
The biennial Award opened on Friday 15 July with the $25,000 acquisitive St John of God Health Care Prize being presented to NSW artist Megan Robert for her work titled, The Bread Basket at Emmaus – then Flesh returned to Word.
The 2016 judges, Dr Petra Kayser, Prof Ted Snell and Rev Tom Elich said spoke of Robert’s winning work, “Here is a whole bible, every printed page carefully rolled up and sewn into a basket in a long process of assemblage. The bread basket brings together word and sacrament, relating to the episode when the resurrected Christ walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and revealed himself when he broke bread at Supper. The bread basked is a container but an empty vessel, it speaks of absence and presence, and we found that many possible readings and meanings can be drawn from this humble, yet complex object.”
Highly Commended awards were presented to Victorian artist Libby Byrne and Western Australian artist Camilla Loveridge.
“We really liked Camilla Loveridge’s Over Jerusalem, a beautifully worked, tactile painting of a landscape – which she described as ‘the burnt terrain of humanity and life’. Attached to the surface of the painting is a brittle white round shape, which makes the absent body of Christ, present through the host.”
Libby Byrne’s Resurrection: A daily navigation is a set of 50 prints documenting a drawing process, beginning on Ash Wednesday, and continued every day until Easter Sunday. Libby set up this process in order to understand the journey towards Resurrection. She photographed the changing drawing each day, recording its development, which includes scraping back paint, starting again, taking a new turn and transforming the image. This is a process, a meditation that requires time, observation, thought, and persistence.
An exhibition with all 44 finalists is currently on show at Linton and Kay Galleries in Perth, until Sunday 24 July 2016.
The artworks are available for purchase and visitors are invited to vote for their favourite work in the People’s Choice Prize. The winner of which will receive $2,000 when it is announced at the New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery where a selection of finalist works will be on display for the month of August.
Judges Dr Petra Kayser, Rev Tom Elich, Mandorla Art Award Winner Megan Robert and judge Prof Ted Snell with Robert’s work The Bread Basket at Emmuas – then Flesh returned to Word