The Hatched: National Graduate Show 2013 opened last Friday at PICA with a huge attendance of over 1000 people.
For a fourth consecutive year, The $35,000 Doctor Harold Schenberg Art Prize has been awarded to one outstanding Hatched artist allowing them to further invest in their career. This year’s winner is Shan Turner-Carroll.
Through the medium of photography, Shan Turner-Carroll questions how notions of identity, self-discovery and contentment have been hijacked by a celebrity obsessed culture. His research is influenced by an observation of the rituals and archaic ways of tribal society. Creating makeshift crowns for his family, made out of found objects that hold personal significance, Turner-Carroll creates relics embedded with present memories and future thoughts. His works represent the primitive, the animal, and spiritual aspects of humanity that are still present in human nature today. Through this familial portraiture, the artist seeks to find an ancient, atavistic self.
The judges of this year’s prize, Independant Curator Jasmin Stephens, PICA Director Amy Barrett-Lennard and Curator at The University of Western Australia, Dr Sally Quin, stated that:
‘Shan Turner-Carroll’s photographic and sculptural works approach questions of identity and destiny through a distinctive feel for materials. This intricate and delicate assembling of materials calls on both his family heritage and his evolving sense of self. These beguiling works convey a notion of the self that is theatrical and playful as well as searching.’
Hatched features 37 artists from 20 art schools across Australia. This year sees an entirely diverse group of artists interrogate the conditions of our time through every possible medium and art form including installation, painting, performance and sound.
Hatched: National Graduate Show 2013
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA)
Until June 9, 2013
Image: Shan Turner-Carroll, Shan, from the series Primal Crown, 2012. Image courtesy the artist.
