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West Australian Aboriginal artist Ben Ward has won the 6th annual John Fries Award 2015 for emerging artists for his painting Our Country. The prize sees the artist take home $10,000 in cash. Ward is the first Indigenous artist, and first West Australian artist in the history of the award to win the prize.
Despite picking up a paintbrush just four years ago, 65-year-old Ward, a paraplegic, has developed a distinctive painting style: using brightly coloured tessellating triangles to depict his local Miriwoong country. At 2.4 meters wide, Our Country is the largest in a series of 18 paintings that represent the landscape as it was before the Lake Argyle Dam, Western Australia’s largest artificial lake, was constructed near Kununurra in the east Kimberley in the early 1970s.
Ward says,“…all that’s underwater now, and that’s what I paint. Everything that’s underwater, I remember every bit of it.” He began painting to share his cultural knowledge with others. He says, “Art gives me an opportunity to express myself and tell the traditional Miriwoong stories. If you can’t get any messages out to the younger generations in the world about what this area is about, it’s good to put it in a painting.”
John Fries Award Curator Oliver Watts says Ward’s work is not only strikingly beautiful, it’s also really important. “His style is about finding ways to connect to younger generations as a way of preserving the identity and heritage of his home,” he says. “Ben’s work is a way of reconciling and remembering the quite violent appropriation of Miriwoong land. Through his paintings, he sets out to create a sense of community and the shared custodianship of the land and the language to represent it.”
New Zealand artist Kenneth Merrick was highly commended for his painting, Foible. Oliver Watts’ co-judges this year were cross-disciplinary artist, Nell, Head Curator of International Art at the Art Gallery of NSW, Justin Paton and installation artist and John Fries Award Chair, Kath Fries.
UNSW Galleries is the award’s presenting partner for the second year running. The award’s $10,000 prize money is donated by the Fries family in memory of former Viscopy director and honorary treasurer, John Fries, who made a remarkable contribution to the life and success of Viscopy.
For further information, or to view a gallery of the finalists work in the exhibition, visit www.johnfriesaward.com
UNSW Galleries at UNSW Art & Design
Until 10 October, 2015
Sydney
Ben Ward, Our Country, 2015, natural ochre on plywood
, 122 x 240cm
© Ben Ward/Licensed by Viscopy
