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Arrernte and Kalkadoon artist Thea Anamara Perkins has been announced as the recipient of the 2023 La Prairie Art Award, an acquisitive award championing the work of Australian women artists presented by the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) and Swiss luxury skincare house, La Prairie.
The award supports Australian women artists through an international artist residency and the development or expansion of a new body of work, which is acquired by AGNSW for its collection.
Thea Anamara Perkins at her home. Photograph: © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jacquie Manning
Perkins was selected for her intimate portraits of First Nations people and striking depictions of Country. She draws inspiration for her work from her family archive of photographs, turning family snapshots into tender portraits while taking charge of the representation of First Nations people and asserting the agency of those she depicts.
Perkins’ acquisitive work comprises four portraits representing three generations of her family members: The graduation, Bondi Beach, The Bungalow, and Warren Ball Avenue – a portrait of her sister surrounded by family at the moment candles are being lit on her birthday cake; a Bondi Beach scene of her grandfather, mother and uncle from the late 1960s; Thea’s mother and grandfather at his university graduation ceremony; and a portrait of her grandfather and aunt at Telegraph Station in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, a site of historical significance to the family.
Thea Anamara Perkins, The graduation, 2023, acrylic on board, 30.5 x 40.5cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, La Prairie Art Award 2023 © the artist. Photograph: © Art Gallery of New South Wales
“My work delves into my family archives of photographs, and through the painting process, communicates the essence of these images. Fleeting, yet suspended in time, they are storied, and coloured by my own emotions and memories. They seek to express the love and strength in First Nations families and situate these instances of joy and belonging, or ‘glimmers’ into our collective imagination.”
– Thea Anamara Perkins
As part of the international artist residency, Perkins will travel to Switzerland to attend the Art Basel international art fair in June as a special guest of La Prairie.
Thea Anamara Perkins, The Bungalow, 2023, acrylic on board, 40.5 x 30.5cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, La Prairie Art Award 2023 © the artist. Photograph: © Art Gallery of New South Wales
AGNSW senior curator of Australian contemporary art Isobel Parker Philip said,
“Perkins has a beautiful and distinct way of re-working and transforming photographs. She understands photography’s capacity to isolate and memorialise particular moments in time. This, paired with her unique approach to line, colour and form, lends her work an emotive resonance. Transient moments are encoded and commemorated in the gentle yet precise gestures of her brushstrokes.”
Perkins has been a finalist in the Wynne Prize and a three-time finalist in the Archibald Prize, and in 2021 she was one of the recipients of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. Her work is also included in The National 4: Australian Art Now, which opens later this month at the Art Gallery.
Perkins’ works will enter AGNSW’s collection. The works will be on display in the South Building until 19 March 2023, then on display as part of the free exhibition The National 4: Australian Art Now until 23 July 2023.
