2023 Award Winners and Finalists

Michael Lindeman
WINNER - $20,000 ACQUISITIVE PRIZE
Regression Painting (Pyjamas and Cocktails...)
Finger Painted Acrylic on Mirror, 96 x 110cm
Through Regression Painting (Pyjamas and Cocktails) I aim to shine a light on the mechanics of the contemporary art world while confronting my own position as an artist. The mirror substrate of the painting steers viewers into appraising themselves and hints at a certain level of narcissism entwined with the merging of contemporary fashion and art.With wry humour, Regression Painting (Pyjamas and Cocktails) illustrates that I am not afraid to lean on self-deprecation also – partially informed by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of an immature defence mechanism used to protect the ego from stress, anxiety or trauma.The jarring of text-based conceptualism with a visceral, immediate finger-painted aesthetic serves to evaluate the market construction of taste, and the strategies artists are compelled to implement in obtaining visibility. Regression Painting (Pyjamas and Cocktails) intersects aesthetics and language, art and audience.
Sally Davis
HIGHLY COMMENDED - $2,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE
Morticia's Sister - Shop Window Still Life
Oil on Linen, 62 x 62cm
Morticia’s Sister depicts a retro-styled mannequin and bust with fashion and accessories reminiscent of the 1950s. Although the painting is created with realism painting techniques, the subtle window reflections and glimmers of sunlight create a dreamlike effect.
Hyun Jin Lee
HIGHLY COMMENDED - $2,000 NON-ACQUISITIVE
Do You Miss Me?
Oil on Paper, 105 x 80cm
Mother who misses married children talks about flowers through a window.
Jesse Dayan
COMMENDED
Blue Reclining Figure
Oil on Linen, 70 x 80cm
Dayan’s work shifts fluidly between art historical reference and direct observation of present day subjects. It is an interest in painting moments as they feel not as they appear that unifies these two approaches. The use of subtly shifting perspective points and directions of light is intended to create the feeling that each painting contains a small unfolding of time. The use of colour for expression rather than description is central to Dayan’s practice. However the use of non-local colour is not intended to abstract the picture from the subject but is a way of heightening attention and questioning expectation.
Gillian Kayrooz
COMMENDED
Searching for Haenyeo
35mm Film, Photograph, 120 x 85cm
It’s the first day of the new year and I have wandered down to Jeju-Do's Haenyo Beach, in Seongsan-ri, South-Korea. I peel a tangerine handed to me by a local on the descent down, and clamber across the rocks where I find a figure in white standing in solitude, swallowed by the jagged face of Seongsan Ilchulbong. As they stare out into the ocean, I can't help but wonder, have they spotted a Jeju mermaid?