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A record number of entries have been received for this year’s annual Gallipoli Art Prize, marking a significant milestone for the $20,000 prize that celebrates its 10th year, coinciding with the Gallipoli Centenary. Every year the paintings submitted to the Gallipoli Art Prize tell personal and often emotional stories about the legacy of war and the people involved, making it a unique art competition. Judges have selected 38 finalists from a record field of 183 entries, with the winner to be announced two days before Anzac Day at midday on Wednesday 22 April at the Gallipoli Memorial Club in Sydney (12 Loftus St, Circular Quay).
Artists were asked to submit works that respond to the themes loyalty, respect, love of country, courage and comradeship as expressed in the Gallipoli Club’s ‘creed’. Australian, New Zealand and Turkish artists were invited to interpret the broad themes in relation to any armed conflict in which Australia has been involved from 1915 up to the present day. The works do not need to depict warfare. This year’s 38 finalist works vary greatly in subject matter and the emotions they evoke – each entry is accompanied by a heartfelt commentary from the artist about their painting.
Some works are deeply personal. ‘Terra Nullius’ is a landscape painted by artist Michelle Hungerford whose son is currently serving in the Australian Army “In my darkest moments I imagine him in a no man’s land”. Rosalind Helyard’s painting of a khaki tunic is a patchwork of Gallipoli vignettes and people. “Embedded in the tunic are members of my family…who have been terribly impacted by war”, including her father who served in Borneo as a young man in the Second World War. Vicki Sullivan chose to depict three generations of Australian veterans in her portrait ‘Courage, Camaraderie and Consequence’ including her husband who served in the Vietnam War working on Iroquois helicopters.
The bond between serving men and animals is depicted in two paintings featuring Simpson’s iconic donkey that was used to transport wounded soldiers at Gallipoli. Martin Tighe’s ‘The Burden’ is an evocative painting of a solitary donkey while Tony Costa’s ‘Murphy and Kirkpatrick’ depicts the donkey nuzzling a fallen John Simpson Kirkpatrick. In another painting artist Lee Porter, whose grand uncle bred and trained horses for WW1, depicts a soldier saying goodbye to his beloved horse in ‘The Saddest Farewell’.
Other works depict lighter moments such as Geelong artist Susan Sutton’s ‘Out Came the Sherrin’ of a spontaneous football game in the Gallipoli dust “Amidst the overwhelming mayhem of their situation, I have attempted to convey a momentary outbreak of sheer revelry…for a rare, brief, boisterous, glorious moment in time they were ‘home’!” In Damian Cazaly’s ‘Killing Time’ the artist captures his co-actors at a break in filming when he was working as an extra on the TV series ‘Gallipoli’.
This year’s finalists come from across Australia and include two New Zealand artists – Nyle Major with a portrait ‘All my mates got to wear wooden crosses’ of his great, great uncle who was New Zealand’s first Victoria Cross, and Merv Appleton with ‘Field Kitchen’ which he describes as a “symbolic tribute to all those who organise and run the field kitchens in war and peace”. Another finalist is dual Turkish Australian national Mertim Golkap whose painting ‘Donald Keys for the Descendants Project’ is one from a series of 20 portraits of Anzac and Turkish Gallipoli War descendants.
“If the Gallipoli Art Prize has a broader purpose it is to make us reflect deeply on our common humanity and hold fast to those beliefs that show national identity in the best possible light,” says judge John McDonald. This year’s judging panel included John McDonald (writer and art critic for The Sydney Morning Herald), Jane Watters (Director, S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney) and Barry Pearce (former Head Curator of Australian Art, AGNSW) and John Robertson (Director, Gallipoli Memorial Club).
The Gallipoli Memorial Club
23 April to 3 May, 2015
(excluding Anzac Day and 26 April)
Sydney
For more details visit www.gallipoli.com.au
