2019 Award Winners and Finalists

Julie Harris
WINNER - $20,000 ACQUISITIVE PRIZE
The Churning
Acrylic and Marble Dust on Canvas, 150 x 137cm
Vipoo Srivilasa
HIGHLY COMMENDED - $2,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE
The Course of True Love
Bronze, 70 x 70cm
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 chose 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 religious statues. It would represent the sacred concept of marriage in my work.
Colleen Stapleton
HIGHLY COMMENDED - $2,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE
Vivid
Oil on Linen, 27 x 23cm
Fiona Dobrijevich
COMMENDED
Shoal
Watercolour, 80 x 69cm
Phoebe Kim
COMMENDED
Do You Eat Kimchi Everyday?
Oil and Pastel on Canvas, 102 x 76cm
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.
Catherine O'Donnell
COMMENDED
Union Street Window #2
Charcoal on Paper, 110 x 72cm
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’.