The Wai Tang Commissioning Award is a new $10,000 initiative developed between the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA) and the MGA Foundation that pays tribute to the work and commitment of the late Wai Tang, who served on MGA’s Committee of Management for over three decades and who generously supported the visual and performing arts through her leadership roles and valuable philanthropic support. The Award is established in Tang’s honour by her husband, Kee Wong.
We congratulate artist Paula Mahoney as the first recipient of the Wai Tang Commissioning Award that now forms part of the annual William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, which has become an important annual survey of contemporary photographic practice in Australia, and one of the most prestigious prizes in the country.
Paula Mahoney, Jump on through (to the other side), 2021, from the series “Dis/appear II”, pigment ink-jet print, 160 × 107cm. Courtesy the artist and Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne
Mahoney’s artistic practice, based on performative photography and portraiture, represents an ongoing examination of death and personal loss, which often includes her daughter, niece, sisters, and herself, wearing clothes of dead loved ones. Outward expressions of grief and sorrow are used as a necessary yet optimistic viewpoint that suggests psychological shifts creating both an awareness of our limitations and our connection to each other and to a greater whole.
“I am particularly interested in the time between when a loved one dies and the onset of rigour mortis, when death’s presence is amplified and we are presented with the horror of what will happen to us all. It is in these moments that we share in our universal fragility and vulnerability.” – Paula Mahoney, artist.
Mahoney will present an exhibition that will coincide with the 2022 Bowness Photography Prize finalist exhibition on view at MGA from 29 September to 13 November. Artists are invited to submit works for the Bowness Photography Prize 2022, from 11 May to 5pm (AEST), 29 June.
