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On Friday, the Geelong Gallery announced Lisa Roet as the winner of the 2013 Geelong acquisitive print award ($3,000), with the inaugural Ursula Hoff Institute award ($1,500) going to emerging artist Travis Paterson. The recipients were selected from 46 short-listed Australian artists whose work reveals the technical and thematic diversity of contemporary printmaking practice.
The award was judged by Susi Muddiman the Director of the Tweed River Art Gallery along with Geelong Gallery’s Director Geoffrey Edwars and Curater Lisa Sullivan, who said “it was a phenomenally strong field in contention for this year’s prizes and a very difficult task to decide on the winners”.
The winning works by Roet and Paterson coincidentally both explore issues of crime and inequality with historical references to murder and injustice, from both real and fictional influences.
Melbourne-based artist Lisa Roet’s hard-ground etching triptych ‘The Beast of Cuvier I, II & III was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, written in 1841, which involves “a double murder where the bruises, hairs found on the scene, and the brute force of the murders could not be delivered by a mere human”. Roet explains “Through etchings I tried to portray the ‘other’ as seen through this story [with] hairs, scratches, marks and bruises”.
Emerging artist Travis Paterson’s multiplate aquatint etching titled ‘Is this where your heart is?’ is inspired by the trial of two young boys in 1727, found guilty of sodomy whilst working on the Dutch merchant vessel Zeewijk moored off the coast of Western Australia. Their punishment was to be exiled to separate islands and left to die. Paterson’s work addresses issues of sexuality and isolation surrounding this story. The print “alludes to one of the more unknowable aspects of the Zeewijk boys’ story. Were they even queer in the way we understand the term today or were they simply seeking some form of comfort?” he explains.
The judging panel said of the award: “We were extremely impressed with the numerous and varied examples of techniques and processes, and the number of works that have a strong narrative focus: whether dealing with historical events or contemporary themes, or citing political or ecological issues”.
2013 Geelong acquisitive print award
31 August to 24 November, 2013
Victoria
Images:
Lisa Roet, The Beast of Cuvier I, II & III (detail), 2011, hard-ground etching; edition 10/15, triptych
Collection: Geelong Gallery. Geelong acquisitive print awards (winner), 2013
Courtesy the artist and Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne.
Travis Paterson, Is this where your heart is?, 2012, multiplate aquatint etching; edition 2/5
Collection: Geelong Gallery. Geelong acquisitive print awards — Ursula Hoff Institute award (winner), 2013
Courtesy of artist.
