Currently logged in. Logout
Fifteen emerging artists have been announced as finalists for the John Fries Award, one of Australia and New Zealand’s most coveted awards for emerging contemporary artists.
With works that include painting, sculpture, installation, video and live performance by finalists from all over Australia, with two New Zealand and three Indigenous artists represented. The finalists are: Erin Coates (WA) , Georgie Roxby Smith (Vic), Eloise Kirk (Tas), Kenneth Merrick (NZ), Kelly Doley (NSW), Archie Moore (Qld), Tim Bruniges (NSW), Tully Arnot (NSW), Darcell Apelu (NZ), Ben Ward (WA), Giselle Stanborough (NSW), Leo Coyte (NSW), Will French (NSW), Vincent Namatjira (SA), and Biljana Jancic (NSW).
All finalists’ entries will feature in a month-long exhibition at UNSW Galleries at UNSW Art & Design – the award’s presenting partner for the second year running. The winner of the award’s $10,000 prize money will be announced on its opening night on Friday, 4 September.
This year’s new guest Curator Oliver Watts, said it was a difficult process to whittle down the 730 entries to just fifteen finalists.
“In the end, we had to curate something that fitted together and said something about ‘the now’. The show will be decidedly contemporary; I think it is characterised by the legacy of conceptual art. The finalists’ pieces resist the norms of society and attempt to deflect our expectations in a humorous or sly way. Many straddle the extremes of reality and fantasy, the serious and the absurd and work in between these two poles,” he said.
Oliver was joined by three highly-regarded professionals on the judging panel, New Zealand-born Justin Paton Head Curator of international art AGNSW; exciting cross-disciplinary artist, Nell; and installation artist and John Fries Award Chair, Kath Fries. The judges will convene again in September to choose the winner from the finalists’ exhibition.
2014 John Fries Award finalists exhibition – installation photo
