Celebrating its 20th year, the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize is one of Australia’s most innovative art awards, spanning all mediums and offering a total of $36,000 in prize money. This annual exhibition and acquisitive art award highlights exciting developments in contemporary art and provides a platform for an artist-selected exhibition that features established artists alongside early-career artists.
This year’s exhibition presents the work of 43 Australian and New Zealand leading contemporary artists showcasing a range of thought-provoking works that the judges have labelled as “both ambitious and intimate in scale with subject matter ranging from humorous and ironic to sensitive and reflective, from kitsch to conceptual and personal.”
Judges John Kaldor AM, Judith Blackall (NAS Gallery curator) and Mark Harpley and Fabian Byrne (Visual Art Department, Redlands School) decided unanimously to award highly respected Tasmanian artist Pat Brassington the $25,000 established artist category for her photographic work titled, Pair Bonding (2015). Talented emerging Sydney artist Jack Lanagan Dunbar has been awarded the $10,000 emerging artist category for his installation work titled, Studies in Light, Movement and Time (2016).
Pat Brassington is one of Australia’s key surrealist artists, revered for her photography and digital media works of art. Her winning work, Pair Bonding, is a playful visual montage composed of three elements – a face, a shirt, and a bench-top with pear. Brassington’s work challenges the audience’s senses and undermines the ‘authority of photography’.
“The striking imagery seen in Pair Bonding, like much of Brassington’s practice, reflects her astute understanding of digital media and her mastery of composition. The dream like quality of the image challenges the audience’s perception of reality through the compression of spaces and objects. Brassington’s winning work is a very welcome and valuable addition to the Redlands Art Collection”, said Mark Harpley Head of Visual Arts Redlands School.
Brassington’s response to winning the award: “I am thrilled to win this year’s Redlands Art Prize. To be nominated by a peer and to have my work exhibited alongside a stella group of established and emerging artists is a truly unique and valued experience.”
Emerging Sydney-based artist, Jack Lanagan Dunbar has created a highly inventive installation with a set of images and sculptures from his upcoming body of work Studies in Light, Movement and Time. The subjects of his photographs, which appear to be luminous ceramic vases, are in fact illusions formed by a clever mechanism of spinning metal rods. These objects do not tangibly exist in three-dimensional space; they are only rendered complete through the use of the photographic apparatus.
The established and emerging artist pairings for 2016 are: Janet Burchill/Jennifer McCamley and Lewis Fidock; John Bloomfield and Sean Wadey; Daniel Boyd and Hamishi Farah; Pat Brassington and Jacob Leary; Carla Cescon and Francesca Heinz; Maria Cruz and Nicola Smith; Julie Fragar and James Barth; Matthys Gerber and Suzy Faiz; Sarah Goffman and Rosie Deacon; Joan Grounds and Andrew Simmons; Shane Haseman and Mitchell Cumming; Ruark Lewis and Dhambit Munungurr; Elizabeth Newman and Hanna Tai; Luke Parker and Elise Harmsen; Natalie Puantulura and Alison Puruntatameri; Elizabeth Pulie and Emma Finneran; Koji Ryui and Anna John; Ava Seymour and Juliet Carpenter; Mary Teague and Jensen Tjhung; David Thomas and Erika Scott; Simon Yates and Jack Lanagan Dunbar.
2016 Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize Exhibition
National Art School Gallery (NAS Gallery)
Until 14 May, 2016
Sydney
Pat Brassington, Pair Bonding, 2015
Jack Lanagan Dunbar, Studies in Light, Movement and Time, 2016
