Art Awards 2007
Once again I was fortunate to be one of the judges for our art awards at Griffith University College of Art. This year our job was made easier by having fine arts divided into three, so there were five categories to judge in all. As always the standard of the work was excellent and there were many wonderful works from which to choose. We were assisted by Marion Drew from Photography and Susan Ostling from Fine Arts; but in the end we had to choose 10 prize winners whose work we liked and hoped you would too. This proved to be successful as those who attended our AGM had a delightful evening viewing and discussing the students’ work (some were even sold on the night!!) We were also able to view the Thiess Art Award works on display in the gallery. Two of our last year’s winners, Carly Scoufos and Tilo Reifenstein (both honours students) received highly commended for their pieces submitted to the Thiess Awards, which was very exciting.
Following are brief descriptions of the student works and I hope to have photos of some of the work at our next lecture for those who missed the AGM.
Margaret Kilin (First Prize Painting)
Margaret’s beautiful paintings titled Memories are of the mangrove forest near her home which has been destroyed to make the Ipswich motorway. She has strong memories of these trees and their significance in her life.
Ivan Lord (Highly Commended Painting)
In Ivan’s paintings politics and religion clash within his work fusing an interest in the occult, discontent with global capitalism and a passion for alternative rock. His works entitled From the Tarot of the Unwilling are a very clever play on tarot cards and contemporary current affairs.
Amanda O’Sullivan (First Prize Printmaking)
Amanda’s work was in various forms from prints to beautiful hand made books and focus on suburban landscapes featuring local homes and scenes around Upper Mount Gravatt.
Sara Rumsey (Highly Commended Printmaking)
Sara uses ink and acrylic paint very skilfully to make her ambiguous freeform landscapes which are very colourful and beautiful.
Keight Davis (First Prize Jewellery)
Keight’s contemporary silver jewellery has an element of playfulness. One bangle has an inbuilt puzzle with 50 tiny silver balls that run through cut channels in the bangle walls. Her pendant is designed to reflect light and create optical illusions – this is done through precise drilling, cuts and joins.
Chantelle Fisher (Highly Commended Jewellery)
Chantelle’s beautiful silver jewellery titled The Price of Gold explores environmental, and social concerns especially in relation to gold mining. Her works have gold leaf and images on titanium of gold mining enclosed in sterling silver.
Carly Kotynski (First Prize Sculpture)
Carly makes exquisite sculptures out of copper wire in the shape of different organisms – mainly single celled – eg one piece entitled Amoeba. They look delicate yet are intrinsically strong.
Melissa Falvey (Highly Commended Sculpture)
Melissa’s work was a very clever installation called Changing Rooms that used lights and music. The lights were from old houses and as each light changed music that related to the light played.
Krystle Wright (First Prize Photography)
Krystle’s studied photojournalism and her work was a fantastic series of photographs of people participating in extreme sports – climbing, diving, bungy jumping (a photo of feet from upside down on the way down!) to name a few.
Brooke Heidke (Highly Commended Photography)
Brooke studied creative advertising. Her work was beautiful clear photographs of the relationships between man made and organic products, for example a chilli dropping onto a broken glass submerged in water or an apple dropping into water.
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