Maryanne Wick
WINNER - $10,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE PRIZE
Still Life After 'The Owl and the Pussycat'
Oil on Wood, 63 x 102cm
My painting is based on a true story and the opening lines of the poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ by Edward Lear, first published in 1871, which is also a personal childhood favourite.Last year, my garden in the Illawarra became home to a large grey Tawny Frogmouth Owl. For hours he would sit in the fork of a large gum tree outside my studio, or contentedly ride the clothesline. When a large domestic cat was introduced into the local neighbourhood and began preying and hunting the small native animals, lizards and birds, not even the owl felt safe. Compared to Lear’s light-hearted nonsensical poem, my painting portrays a more sinister story. It depicts the cat about to pounce on the unsuspecting owl. A lizard tries to hide, the still life becomes confused and turns upside down and the beautiful, but very scared, pea green boat sails away.More recently, the use of symbolism, shadows and the power of suggestion has crept into my still life paintings. Having lived in Korea and China many years ago, immersed in their rich art and culture, my introduction to the many customs, traditions and stories still continues to inform my work today.
Ben Smith
HIGHLY COMMENDED - $2,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE
Drawn
Oil on Board, 110 x 90cm
“Drawn” is part of a series of work entitled “Journeys through the interior”. This series depicts figures traveling through metaphorical spaces on various forms of transportation. The paintings are allegories for the fundamental transitions in life. This painting in particular is about being drawn by something beyond your control. It is about the periods in life where you are in an intense state of flux. This flux could be of the mind or of something more corporeal, be that life into death, sickness into health or the transition into parenthood. Is about life pulling you forward into the unknown.
Eamonn Jackson
YOUNG ARTIST PRIZE - $1,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE
Sans Frontieres
Medium Graphite on Arches 300gsm, 51 x 76cm
Sans Frontières is a whimsical view of human existence. No matter where you are on this planet, there they are, floating down gutters after a heavy rain, washed up on untouched shorelines, or littered across the urban sprawl. A testament to the ordinariness of the human condition, no matter what its circumstance.