WINNER of 2019 KAAF ART PRIZE
(acquisitive prize)
Julie Harris
The Churning
Acrylic and Marble Dust on Canvas 150 x 137 $17000
(statement to follow shortly)
HIGHLY COMMENDED
(non-acquisitive prize)
Vipoo Srivilasa
The Course of True Love
Bronze 70 x 70 $12500
The work is about same-sex marriage journey from around the world.
The series is realised in five bronze vignettes representing moments in world history that have contributed directly, or indirectly, to the acceptance of same-sex partnerships, and led Australia to pass the same sex marriage law in 2018.
The moments including Stoneware riots, Thailand decriminalises homosexual acts, the established of Society Five, the first homosexual rights organisation in Melbourne, The Simpsons became the first cartoon series to dedicate an entire episode to same-sex marriage topic and the Yes campaign.
I work predominantly with ceramics but for this series I choose to work with bronze. I use bronze, a robust and permanent medium to symbolise the strong concept of marriage and a solid commitment a couple makes to each other. Bronze is also a medium for religion statues. It would represent the sacred concept of marriage in my work.
HIGHLY COMMENDED
(non-acquisitive prize)
Colleen Stapleton
Vivid
Oil on Linen 27 x 23 $700
JUDGES' COMMENDATION
(non-acquisitive prize)
Fiona Dobrijevich
Shoal
Watercolour 69 x 80 $820
JUDGES' COMMENDATION
(non-acquisitive prize)
Phoebe Kim
Do You Eat Kimchi Everyday?
Oil and Pastel on Canvas 102 x 76 NFS
Intrigued by subconscious behaviour and cultural differences, my works explore self-identity that reflect from various experiences in the careless social prejudice which blatantly exist within Sydney. They respond to situations and conversations faced as a Korean born Australian.
Do You Eat Kimchi Everyday? Is the second most commonly asked question after “Where are you from?” It employs a sarcastic sense of humour as a response to the unrealistic generalisation people make towards those who are different from them. I question the purpose of such stereotypes and its relevance, especially as a second generation who is often conflicted in identifying myself to a specific nationality and culture.
The singular white line acts as the subconscious, such encounters are overlooked and brushed upon. Our true emotional responses are often repressed out of politeness and never voiced, due to its insignificance of such small encounters that make up our day to day lives.
JUDGES' COMMENDATION
(non-acquisitive prize)
Catherine O'Donnell
Union Street Window #2
Charcoal on Paper 110 x 72 $9500
My practice explores the architecture, culture and history of the suburbs, representing the commonly overlooked dwellings of suburbia - the home, in an abstracted form. I have a keen interest in minimalist structures of architecture, the pictorial power of illusion, scale and perspective and the pursuit of a shared narrative is at the heart of my artistic practice.
Through my drawing practice I examine the urban aesthetics that shape and inform our lives every day and then distil and re-present common place structures such as windows through my expanded drawing practice. I employ realism as a catalyst to ignite the imagination of the viewer and invite them to look beyond the mundane and banal. To revisit these spaces imaginatively and find the aesthetic poetry embedded within in the suburban landscape, while at the same time to connect through personal experiences and memories to ‘home’.
ARTWORKS by 2019 FINALISTS
(In alphabetical order of artists' names)
Vanessa Ashcroft
Dark Corner - A Place In Time
Acrylic, Ink, Oil on Canvas 92 x 92 $2800
I am surrounded by the beautiful Australian bush and I am constantly drawing and painting on the waterways and bush of the Hawkesbury River. The dark still bush descends into darkness as the day comes to a close and the shadows become shapes and a feeling of quiet envelopes you. With my different mediums I use a variety of tools to create line and shape, and then use this as a base for larger oil paintings, mixed media on paper and smaller montage works. Using a minimal palette I am heading in a new direction with spacial awareness and sparse shapes and forms while still trying to describe the feeling of solitude and beauty. When using mixed media allows me to be very free with line and form, I then return to the studio to compose the minimal, but yet complex works on canvas.
Bob Baird
Discarded Bird's Nest III
Watercolour on Paper 67 x 54 $4800
Discarded birds nest III is the last in a series of three studies of different found birds nests over a two year period. Found in parks and bush land close to my studio. On close examination I was so amazed by the complex design and technique used to created this nest, it had to be documented. I chose watercolour because of its luminosity on white paper, and the advantage of representing the linear qualities of the intricate weaving of the sticks and woolen fibers found in its construction. This beautiful birds nest is one of nature's marvels and a dedication to the continuing cycle of life.
Min-Woo Bang
Beautiful Ending
Oil on Linen 102 x 102 $9800
This painting 'Beautiful Ending' is about a place (Blue mountains) I often visit to observe nature that is both familiar and strange. Something is conjured out of nothingness in this picture, the ephemeral beauty of pink clouds organised into the record of fleeting dramas that conclude with the setting of the sun.
Clare Brodie
To The Hill And Back
Matt Vinyl Paint on Cotton Canvas 122 x 112 $4300
To The Hill And Back is part of my ‘Meandering Series’ which explores the dry landscape which I observed whilst on holiday in Tasmania.
In this painting I used my recurring theme of a road within the landscape with the elimination details and repetition of shapes to create a physical sense of order and harmony. Small vignettes are deliberately placed at the edges of the painting to lead the view outwards and beyond.
I used a neutral pallet with a combination of intensely saturated colours specifically placed to lead the viewer's eye through the painting.
This work continues my exploration into my observational art where I use scale and placement to create artworks that still time #artworksthatstilltime
Melanie Caple
Fitzroy Neon Sunset
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 122 x 122 $5000
Hot nights, neon lights cascading down from ceilings, triffid-like overgrown gardens, Las Vegas meets Fitzroy. Although cemented in botanical painting, this work is an extension of the artist’s practice where form and colour are juxtaposed with native or tropical flora, to alter perception and create dynamic and vibrant narratives. Inspired by North Fitzroy, the loquat, aloe, kentia and parlour palm dance with a neon sunset, capturing a moment of respite and colour in what can be a busy inner Melbourne suburb that is increasingly threatened urban development.
Wei Bin Chen
Barista
Oil on Canvas 71 x 67 $9000
Eun Ju Cho
Purity 2
Acrylic on Wood Panel 55 x 55 $1600
My work, which is influenced by several traditional Korean arts, expresses my inner self reflecting on my life in Korea and my home in Australia. The lines of my work are inspired by the lines of the tie of jeogori, part of the hanbok, called goreum. Turquoise traditionally symbolises pureness, cleanliness and the sky. Yellow and pink, used in hanbok - traditional Korean dress - for unmarried women, symbolises their innocence. Orange is the colour of light, warmth and the living things of nature. It makes me picture a fruit-bearing persimmon tree in the Korean countryside, the smell of wood burning in a fireplace. I have also used striped colours called saekdong which refers to the striped colours on the sleeves of a young child’s hanbok which are believed to protect them from evil spirits.
Kee Sik Chung
I Love You
Oil on Canvas 45 x 35 $1500
I started this drawing to remember the warmth and brightness of her smile, which someday I may never see again. This portrait is in memory of my mother, who is fast losing her memories. Even the wrinkles are precious records of her memories.
I will always treasure the memory of her reactions when I showed her this drawing. I will forever hold dear her tears and her promise she will treasure our memory forever.
Robert Coates
The Old Man Sees Through It
Multimedia on Board 64 x 59 $1800
David Collins
Cycad Walk
Oil on Canvas 93 x 92 NFS
Charles Cooper
Thin Veneer
Ink and Collage on Rice Paper 190 x 108 $4000
I enjoy considering the roadway with its painted directives as an allegory for the human condition
Ryan Daffurn
Rendezvous
Oil on Linen 80 x 120 $4500
Sally Davis
Florence and Anne
Oil on Linen 50 x 50 $1350
Florence and Anne is a historic study of characters of 1960's Australia. The way Florence gently holds on to Anne's arm suggests their bond.
Fiona Dobrijevich (Judges' Commendation)
Shoal
Watercolour 69 x 80 $820
Tracy Dods
Freelance
Acrylic on Canvas 112 x 112 $4200
These figures are, or represent, the most powerful people in the world – and yet they seem to have no idea what they’re doing or how they got where they are - to their position of influence or ankle-deep in rising oceans (and quite possibly both).
My worn out corporate monoliths invariably clutch briefcases limply by their sides. Water laps against expensive designer shoes. Comb-overs fly wearily in the breeze. By placing these agonized figures inside a panoramic beach format, I perceptively suggests either a dramatically large, or sometimes a smaller and understated, expression of impotence in this characteristically essential element of Australian life. Either way, it works powerfully and I paint them as if they are observed remotely, merging acute social observation with poignant symbolic metaphor to illuminate the heart of the contemporary human condition.
A journey through corporate anguish, clearly identified as a metaphor for wider social isolation.
Viola Dominello
Hawkesbury Summer
Oil on Board 40 x 40 $2000
Located on the northern outskirts of Sydney near Cowan on the Hawkesbury, Muogamarra Nature Reserve contains many rare native plants and flowers. In this work I have sought to capture in between the trunklines the summer heat and haze of the escarpment flushed with flowers.
Joe Furlonger
Self Portrait At 67
PVA Binder and Pigment 50 x 50 $5000
Keith Fyfe
On The Surface
Oils on Colour Chart Samples 15 x 16 (38 x 38 framed) $850
Jane Guthleben
Bluey
Oil on Marine Ply 81 x 81 $4000
In Bluey, a flock of budgerigars roosts incongruously in an arrangement of bare branches. A colonial figure based on Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy, adorns the ornate vase, which is somewhat out of place in the low, desolate landscape. It is unclear whether the title refers to one of the budgies, or to the effete boy or his dog pictured on the vase.
It is part of an ongoing series where Guthleben reimagines 17th Century Dutch vanitas paintings using Australian flora and fauna. Her compositions can employ humour and playfulness, but like her Dutch predecessors, they also use vanitas signifiers, here to point to environmental and other political concerns.
In Bluey, one is left to question whether the birds have denuded the only foliage in the desert landscape, and the pompous attitude of the boy seemingly oblivious to his harsh surroundings.
Junko Hagiwara
Gordon's Bay
Watercolour 87 x 76 $1000
Craig Handley
Some Assembly Required
Oil on Linen 122 x 138 $12000
This is a painting about ups and downs and rounds and rounds and snakes and ladders.
CH 2019
Julie Harris (WINNER)
The Churning
Acrylic and Marble Dust on Canvas 150 x 137 $17000
Garth Henderson
Banksia Module 01/2019
Giclée Print on 188gsm Hahnemühle Photo Rag Paper 77 x 54 $1450
My current work explores the space between the real and the virtual, utilising 3D modelling and sculpting software, and traditional printmaking conventions. Organic geometry, in particular the unique and evolving mathematical permutations of Australian flora, forms the basis of an architectural approach to these constructions. This model based on Banksia ericifolia.
Peta Hinton
Weeping Rock
Acrylic on Paper Mounted on Scroll: Calico, Paper, Wood 100 x 111 NFS
'Weeping Rock' is from a series of paintings that celebrates water in the Blue Mountains environment. The uncertainty surrounding the future of such places due to climate change, has created a sense of urgency to create these works.
James Jones
Honeycomb Conjecture (Diptych)
Oil on Canvas 50 x 80 $5500
Linda Joyce
Keeping the Past Alive
Acrylic on Canvas 48 x 48 $2500
Daniel Kim
South of Green Point
Oil on Canvas 60 x 77 $650
Jonathan Kim
Jogakbo - 10819P
Oil Pastel and Ink on Paper (Yellow) 75 x 75 $1350
My practice explores the spatial concepts formed by the interaction between media. Jogakbo series emphasises the tactility and texture of media and the ethnic sentiments created using traditional Korean design and colour theory according to the idea of Dansaekhwa.
Phoebe Kim (Judges' Commendation)
Do You Eat Kimchi Everyday?
Oil and Pastel on Canvas 102 x 76 NFS
Intrigued by subconscious behaviour and cultural differences, my works explore self-identity that reflect from various experiences in the careless social prejudice which blatantly exist within Sydney. They respond to situations and conversations faced as a Korean born Australian.
Do You Eat Kimchi Everyday? Is the second most commonly asked question after “Where are you from?” It employs a sarcastic sense of humour as a response to the unrealistic generalisation people make towards those who are different from them. I question the purpose of such stereotypes and its relevance, especially as a second generation who is often conflicted in identifying myself to a specific nationality and culture.
The singular white line acts as the subconscious, such encounters are overlooked and brushed upon. Our true emotional responses are often repressed out of politeness and never voiced, due to its insignificance of such small encounters that make up our day to day lives.
Jolon Larter
Ladies Night
Felt-tip Pen, Pencils, Textas and Acrylic Ink on Paper 79 x 105 $650
Nerissa Lea
The Birdhide King
Oil on Board 33 x 33 $2500
Somewhere in the desert in a birdhide; there lives a king.
Michael Lindeman
Artist Seeking Love
Acrylic on Canvas 135 x 60 $6000
‘ARTIST SEEKING LOVE’ is an acrylic on canvas painting that expands on a recent series of drawings. The series replicates ‘Obituary Notices’, ‘Missing’, ‘Announcement’ and ‘Seeking Same’ classified advertisements. With a wry institutional critique, ‘ARTIST SEEKING LOVE’ is a comical yet critical painting that shines a light on the mechanics of the contemporary art world.
‘ARTIST SEEKING LOVE’ sets out to activate repressed impulses, embody alienation, disrupt convention and invert structures of power with a certain self-deprecating humour. In direct contrast to the notion of artist as genius, the work exemplifies a wilful idiocy that goes out on a limb, I risk my neck, or possibly my career, to propose art that contributes innovation to the field of text-based contemporary art. Through paintings such as ‘ARTIST SEEKING LOVE’ I aim to establish a point of difference with current fashionable aesthetics and art that relies on attached 'socio-political' concerns.
James McGrath
Cloud Flora #3
Oil on Canvas 97 x 122 NFS
This painting is from a new series of surreal Baroque interiors that I am working on for a show next year. Why Baroque? Because multiple techniques, genres and narratives can be folded into each other using a Baroque theatricality.
Within this painting, a Baroque interior is flooded with over-sized flowers. It is a visual conundrum, the two archetypes of perspective and Dutch still life entwined in a surreal play or dance.
Like a floral monster casting its shadow over an interior and consuming it. It is perhaps a metaphor of nature taking back control of the built environment, climate change takes revenge!
Lyn Merrington
Temps, Deadline Looming
Acrylic on Canvas Panels 112 x 80 $3000
Temps, in French means both time and weather, deadline looming. What more can I say?
Paul Miller
Dark Trees Dry Field
Watercolour on Paper 85 x 110 $4700
My wife and I go to Bowral often to have a break and relax while I draw and take photos. This image was a quick glimpse of bunch of dark trees again in a golden coloured field.
Guy Morgan
Kevin Connor And Robert Eadie At Bill & Toni's
Oil on Canvas 63 x 94 NFS
Legends of the art world – and terrific people to meet, laugh and have a chat with over coffee.
Catherine O'Donnell (Judges' Commendation)
Union Street Window #2
Charcoal on Paper 110 x 72 $9500
My practice explores the architecture, culture and history of the suburbs, representing the commonly overlooked dwellings of suburbia - the home, in an abstracted form. I have a keen interest in minimalist structures of architecture, the pictorial power of illusion, scale and perspective and the pursuit of a shared narrative is at the heart of my artistic practice.
Through my drawing practice I examine the urban aesthetics that shape and inform our lives every day and then distil and re-present common place structures such as windows through my expanded drawing practice. I employ realism as a catalyst to ignite the imagination of the viewer and invite them to look beyond the mundane and banal. To revisit these spaces imaginatively and find the aesthetic poetry embedded within in the suburban landscape, while at the same time to connect through personal experiences and memories to ‘home’.
Jennifer O'Young
Flora Natura 1
Original Hand-Pulled Collagraph 29 x 21 $700
The textures of nature are so beautiful. I love detail and building a collagraph plate allows me to pay homage to these textures and soft colours. My aim was to achieve depth using carborundum gel and coax the flora into the foreground using a variety of papers, cotton threads and recycled pieces of previous collagraph plates.
David Pavich
Silent Darkness (Port Arthur)
Oil on Polycotton 46 x 62 $1800
This painting is a continued investigation in the metaphorical use of the landscape. It has developed from studies made on location. Given the Historical brutality that has taken place in Port Arthur, I was interested in attempting to convey this emotional impact through light and colour. With this in mind, I found the bleak low key colours of Winter provided the necessary eerie atmosphere. This work is an ongoing interest in the effect the seasons and the light can have in the Australian Landscape. As a painter, it is invigorating to watch these changes in the landscape and be constantly challenged by capturing its presence at a given time on canvas.
Colin Rhodes
Bright Light
Ink Painting on Paper 42 x 59 $250
Brian Robinson
Ai Baud
Linocut 60 x 118 $3300
Ai Baud means harvest season.
Adriana Seserko
Kuan Yin
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Linen 101 x 101 $8800
Kuan Yin, a Buddhist deity, is a pillar of mercy, purity, and compassion. She sacrificed her chance of eternal happiness in paradise to thwart world suffering. Celebrated as the Goddess who listens to the cries of the Earth, she protects those in need of her aid and from all manner of troubles and threats. Faced by an uncertain future marred by the shadow that is climate change, many have taken to the streets worldwide to voice their increasing alarm of our dying planet. Now is the time to unite and act, not tomorrow or next year. With wisdom and some sacrifice, change is possible. Without immediate action however, the outlook for all life on earth is a grave one indeed.
Patrick Shirvington
Morning Bronzewing
Watercolour, Pen and Ink 68 x 51 $3000
Liz Shreeve
Circling The Square
Torn and Curled Paper on Paper 110 x 110 $6000
This interactive and meditative piece responds to variations in light falling on a surface and to the movement of the viewer. Made of pure white, soft but strong paper it catches light at different angles to create subtle changes in colour and tone.
Vipoo Srivilasa (HIGHLY COMMENDED)
The Course of True Love
Bronze 70 x 70 $12500
The work is about same-sex marriage journey from around the world.
The series is realised in five bronze vignettes representing moments in world history that have contributed directly, or indirectly, to the acceptance of same-sex partnerships, and led Australia to pass the same sex marriage law in 2018.
The moments including Stoneware riots, Thailand decriminalises homosexual acts, the established of Society Five, the first homosexual rights organisation in Melbourne, The Simpsons became the first cartoon series to dedicate an entire episode to same-sex marriage topic and the Yes campaign.
I work predominantly with ceramics but for this series I choose to work with bronze. I use bronze, a robust and permanent medium to symbolise the strong concept of marriage and a solid commitment a couple makes to each other. Bronze is also a medium for religion statues. It would represent the sacred concept of marriage in my work.
Colleen Stapleton (HIGHLY COMMENDED)
Vivid
Oil on Linen 27 x 23 $700
Andrew Sullivan
The Wheel of Fortune
Oil on Canvas 56 x 71 NFS
Robyn Sweaney
Equilibrium
Acrylic on Polycotton 50 x 70 $5400
Residencies, travelling to new places and revisiting past landscapes has become an extremely important element of my work. I came across this modernist inspired home in a rural town in Tasmania.
I was drawn to its unpretentious and clean lined façade and the considered and ordered plantings behind its simply defined boundary of an undulating chain fence.
One can only imagine what histories have occurred within this small and humble house facing the street.
Claire Tozer
Edge
Ink, Pencil, Watercolour, Lumocolor on Paper 93 x 126 $4500
I find the deserts of Australia the most powerful and captivating scenery of all. The stillness, the remote arid shapes and colours of ancient earth formations. The climate. In my drawing Edge I draw my interpretation of this experience.
Morgan Veness
Calm Atmosphere Despite Crowds 2
Acrylic Paint, Pigment Liner on Reclaimed Wood 70 x 50 $4900
The temple itself is reached through forested grounds. You get the most famous view as you walk up to the front of the temple, with the stairways coming down towards you. You cannot enter here, though, and must head to the right to find the way in. There's a spring there, and you can drink from it. You climb into the main precinct, which has the famous pagodas in it, and from the courtyard you can take more pictures of the front of the temple structure from the inside looking out. There are several halls in the temple, and you can peer in but not take pictures. As you go back from the front area, you climb ever higher and steeper, with forest and mountain views. Some stairs are VERY steep. There are good toilets in the car park and at the temple itself.
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn
Footsteps To The Nigatsu-Do (Interlocked Waves) 2019
Acrylic on Perforated Canvas 94 x 104 $18500
'Footsteps to the Nigatsu-Do ( interlocked waves ) 2019', is a painting depicting one of the six symbolic patterns on the significant 53 stair count ascending the Nigatsu-Do at Todai-ji, Nara. There are three different patterns of engravings on the first three steps at the bottom of the stairs (flowing water, hexagon, floral pattern), and another three different patterns on the last three at the top (interlocked waves, net, lattice), but there is nothing in between.
The long empty space between the three patterned steps at the top and bottom represent emptiness, thusness, the space time continuum - a destination that mankind cannot reach.
I have stenciled a broken sutra design in this painting. The sutra is broken because the melody is lost, the sound is broken, and the meaning is broken because of our hatred, greed, and delusion. This is what the Buddha tells us in the Fire Sutra.
Gracie Ward Napaltjarri
Muntati (Grandmother's Country)
Acrylic on Linen 61 x 122 $3250
Maryanne Wick
The Bower (Triptych)
Oil on Wood 68 x 150 $5500
My painting depicts a family of native bowerbirds, protecting the bower, their nests and their young. Their blue collectables form the bush floor. The birds and their lizard neighbours have just been startled by an unknown predator, symbolized by the mask, which I found buried in my garden many years ago. Although the birds try to frighten it away, the mask represents death.
‘The Bower’ is a metaphorical painting, based on the plight of our Australian native species, under threat and possible extinction, by both feral and unsupervised domestic animals.
The use of symbolism and the power of suggestion has crept into my still life paintings over the last few years. Having lived in Korea and China many years ago and having been immersed in their rich art and culture, my introduction to their many customs, traditions and stories continues to inform my work today.
Sairi Yoshizawa
Residue
Natural Dyed Thread Ends and Wood 30 x 74 $2300
Sairi Yoshizawa’s work reflects her interest in the eternal discovery of colours in local landscapes. The process of natural dye reveals unpredictable colours; it is like searching for and recording nuances of colours and patterns in the land.
Residue is created by warp ends used in the weave, collected for years from past woven works. These short ends are twisted into continuous, endless yarn which depicts an abstract landscape of fragility yet interconnected colours of nature.
Alan Young
Floating House
Acrylic on Canvas 71 x 56 $1600
Grace Zhang
Familiar Memories
Oil on Wood Board 61 x 61 $1800
That afternoon I was sitting in my backyard having some tea. As I saw the washing line above, I all at once associated this with my childhood. It was a similar scenery; our busily hardworking guardians were doing our laundry, cooking...etc. Recalling this familiar memory again has made me miss them very much. So, I took out my drawing board and painted this view.
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Semi-Finalists' Digital Exhibition to follow...
