1st Prize – $8,000
Sponsored by Vasse Development & Bendigo Bank.
Winner: Josh Windram “Everlong”
Acrylic on Canvas $3,200
Judges comments:
Overall this work spoke as a stand out piece for all the judges.Mastering execution of the medium in overall subject, framing, lighting and gradation, leading to the build up and tension in the work.
2nd Prize – $2,000
Sponsored by Vasse Development & Bendigo Bank.
Winner: Peter Allpress “Between Loss & Life”
White charcoal/pastel on sanded pastel paper $1,000
Artist’s Statement:
“This is Tom, a young 92 year old Bunbury local who fortunately agreed to sit for me. I was privileged to listen to him share a multitude of amazing life experiences, one of the most emotional and life changing has been the recent loss of his beautiful wife, yet all his shared memories come with a smile.”
Judges Comments:
Represents a lifetime of story captured so well in the chosen medium of charcoal. We were all touched by the depth of the story that has been so well rendered in this magnificent work.
Indigenous Prize $1,000
Sponsored by Leeuwin Civil.
Winner: Cassandra Bynder “Luminescence”
Mixed Media on canvas panel $760
Judges Comments:
This beautiful small scale painting holds so much space, beautifully capturing the flow and luminescence of the underwater world. In a gentle light that shows the subtle but strong relationship between mother and calf.
The Timothee Vasse Art Prize $750
Sponsored by One Palm Studio.
Winner: Arna Sternberg “Carotene Blush”
Photographic print on textured paper. $350
Artist’s Statement:
“I wanted to create a painterly, fluid, minimalistic capture from ground level of this beautiful pink lake near the Stirling Ranges in our Southwest.”
Judges Comments:
This piece invites the viewer to look again. This exquisite photograph in its sensitive grasp of space and place. The reflective process that has rendered the subtle and beautiful nuances of nature.
Homegrown Art Prize $500
Sponsored by Ben Ryan Building Lifestyle.
Winner: Sarah Malone “Delta Plains I”
Mixed media on Canvas $1,950
Artist’s Statement:
“‘Delta Plains I’ is the first piece from a larger body of work. In this artwork I have been concerned with exploring the fluidity of natural landscapes; how they are forever moving, changing and evolving. I have been examining the interrelationship between water and earth; how running water erodes and carves into the landscape and natural spaces are formed in nature by nature. Inspired by my aerial observations captured by drone, I have worked with a variety of media to create delicate layers that interact to form earthly textures and colours that reflect the Western Australian landscape.”
Judge Comments:
A wonderful adventure in mixed mediums that reflect colour, texture and patterns of the Western Australian landscape. So lovely to have an abstract piece that has elicited a response in all the judges.
Highly Commended $250
Sponsored by Vasse Automotive.
Winner: Linda Fardoe “Troubled Waters”
Archival ink on Canson Paper $2,300
Artist’s Statement:
“An Artist in Residence program at Donnelly River Village in South Western Australia 2019 set me on a new path. The experience of walking through damp forests and working from life in the quietness of this magical world will stay with me forever. Getting lost alone without any communication was profound, provoking thoughts of folk tales and the brothers Grimm. I had planned to travel to the Tasmanian rainforests in 2020. The outbreak of COVID ended that dream. Instead I took inspiration from a friend’s photographic documentation of her Tasmanian rainforest travels. Throughout 2020 I worked with these two concepts. Donnelly River being a lived experience and Tasmania a vicarious journey. The Donnelly experience became an ink drawing “Mindscape” 150cm x 30cm and my friend’s travelogue inspired the ink drawing “Vicarious Journey” 150cm x 30cm.The two became entwined in my mind. Both works were scanned and printed as giclees. Sections were then selected and manipulated in Photoshop creating digital prints. These prints became inspiration for new drawings. This process moving from traditional drawing to contemporary digital manipulation and printmaking technology and then back to drawing is my current practice. I work with archival ink pens, dip pens with sepia and India ink, on Canson and Arches watercolour paper.“Troubled Waters” is an original archival ink drawing on Canson paper.”
Judges Comments:
A wonderful adventure into the shadow. The line and the mark making elicits troubled energy. Deep in layers of symbolism.
High Commended $250
Sponsored by Vasse Panel & Paint.
Winner: Ryan Andrew Lee “Wonnarua, 2019”
Cinema/Video installation. $15,000*
(*Television not included – for display purposes only)
Artist’s Statement:
”Wonnarua’ is a video-based installation work that aims to provoke discussion around themes of Indigenous ways of living in juxtaposition with Western Settler-state system’s unsustainable, damaging ways of using stolen lands. In today’s current global state of environmental (and cultural, communal and spiritual) emergency, the need to embrace traditional Indigenous knowledge is now more crucial than ever before. The traditional custodians of these lands have sustainably looked after country for 90,000+ years, yet in the short 231 years since colonisation these lands have been abused and sold for profit while the Aboriginal people and culture along with their vast knowledge for country and sustainable land management methods have been suppressed and put to the side.
The video diptych juxtaposes living portraits of five Aboriginal men from the Wonnarua Nation with provoking drone shots of the vast Musswellbrook coal mines, which are situated in the heart of the Wonnarua Nation.
This moving image installation advocates for profound inquiry into the events and resulting cultural, environmental and spiritual impacts that have taken place in this country in the short period since colonisation began in Australia. This work is a statement on a way of living; a plea for cultural embracement, reconciliation, and change; a push for government and corporate systems to stop oppressing Indigenous people and culture. It is a plea to listen, learn and implement the vast knowledge of First Nations people in the re-thinking of today’s current systems that are clearly not working, in order for everyone to move forward inclusively,together as one.”
Judges Comments:
Resounds of a common story right across the nation and beyond. So beautifully launched in film media depicting the juxtaposition between living culture and the decimation of nature and earth.
People’s Choice Art Prize $1,000
Sponsored by Callows Office Choice.
Winner: Sam Broadhurst “From Above”
Acrylic on Belgium Linen $12,800
Students Choice Art Prize $200
Sponsored by Bills Firewood.
Winner: Fiona Buchanan “Six Gulls Yallingup”
Oil on Canvas $1,850
Artist’s Statement:
I love Yallingup for its beauty and wildness. I love to see gulls flying in the spray and being energised by the ocean.
Every time I visit the colours are different and the ocean is different.
This work is an expression of my green heart, and a response to the feeling of wild peace a visit to Yallingup brings. I find being close to the ocean incredibly inspiring. I am inspired by the beauty of the earth; the power and majesty of the natural world; the light and colour, and in particular the crazy energy of the ocean.
There is something about the wild ocean that puts all other thoughts aside and allows me to feel at one with time and place.