Grace Cossington Smith art award 2021

2021 art award

The awards:

• $15,000 awarded to the winner (acquisitive).
• $2,500 awarded to an early career artist.
• $2,500 awarded to a local artist from Hornsby and Kuring-gai area.

The winners will share a three-week group exhibition at the GCS in 2023

Finalists

Announcing 45 works by leading and emerging Australian artists for the 2021 Grace Cossington Smith art award.

The final works were selected by guest judges:

Katrina Cashman, Gallery Manager & Senior Curator at the National Art School

and Oliver Watts, Senior Curator of Artbank, Sydney and artist

Louise Allerton  (NSW), Kim Anderson (VIC), Susan Andrews (NSW), Suzanne Archer (NSW), Dhinawan Baker (NSW), Ed Bartok (NSW), Deborah Beck (NSW), Max Berry (NSW), Lee Bethel (NSW), Amber Boardman (NSW), Kevin Chin (VIC), David Collins (NSW), Yvette Coppersmith (VIC), Jedda-Daisy Culley (NSW), Adrienne Doig (NSW), Chris Dolman (NSW), Nikki Easterbrook (NSW), Sarah Edmondson (NSW), David Fairbairn (NSW), Emily Galicek (NSW), Sophie Lee Georgas (NSW), Liron Gilmore (NSW), Eliza Gosse (NSW), Nadia Hernández (NSW), Nicole Kelly (NSW), Martin King (VIC), Belem Lett (NSW), Steve Lopes (NSW), Tom Loveday (NSW), Paula Mahoney (VIC), Lisa McKimmie (NSW), Bridgette Mcnab (VIC), Anh Nguyen (NSW), Amanda Penrose Hart (NSW), Katya Petetskaya (NSW), Julien Playoust (NSW), Rhonda Pryor (NSW), Cate Riley (NSW), Peter Sharp (NSW), Wendy Sharpe (NSW), Sally Stokes (NSW), Elefteria Vlavianos (NSW), Barbara Weir (NT), Agus Wijaya (NSW), Alice Wormald (VIC)

 

The WINNERS

Nadia Hernández  Grace Cossington Smith art award $15, 000 acquisitive

Nadia Hernández is a multidisciplinary artist. She was born in Mérida, Venezuela and lives and works in Sydney and studied at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (fashion) in 2008. Hernández explores her personal and political connections to Venezuala, connecting with memories and narratives that she articulates through her colours, shapes and textures and the poetry of her titles. In 2019 Hernández was awarded the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize and undertook a residency with Bundanon Trust, NSW. Hernández is represented by STATION.

Judges comment

Dulce de lechoza verde (procedimiento)/Green papaya sweet (procedure), is a beautiful textile work that harks back to Hernández heritage considering ideas of diaspora and food connecting culture and family. It is full of life, tenderness

Dulce de lechoza verde (procedimiento)/Green papaya sweet (procedure), 2021, cotton, linen, and corduroy on linen textile, 145 x 100 cm

 

Alice Wormald Grace Cossington Smith early career artist award $2,500 non acquisitive

Alice Wormald graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Wormald creates paintings that develop from a process of image collection and collage that she fragments and reinterprets. Her compositions are layered, combining a softness of brushmark and hard-edge linear patterns creating an illusion and play on visual perspective. Wormald represented by Gallery 9, Sydney.

Judges Comment

Turning in Circles is a contemporary painting that revels in artifice, with her playing with and remaking of found images. It is a work full of contrasts – inside/outside, natural/artificial and a variety of interesting viewpoints.

Turning in Circles, 2020, oil on linen. 140 x 110 cm

 

David Collins Grace Cossington Smith local artist award $2,500 non acquisitive

David Collins’ life on Dangar Island in the Hawkesbury River allows him to live with nature and connect fully with both the water and the land. He has a studio amongst the trees, overlooking the water, and frequently paints and draws en plein air. His view of the landscape with his broad washes of oil paint and calligraphic line ensure a personal and unique style. Collins has been the recipient of artist residencies in Australia and overseas and exhibited regularly. He is represented by Defiance Gallery.

Judges Comment

Hot Burn is an evocative, well observed landscape capturing a strong connection to place. Collins poetically responds to the land through colour, and beautiful glazes provide a sense of depth, heat and refracted light. Also revealed are suggestions of the devasting fires we so recently experienced.

Hot Burn, 2021, oil on Canvas, 122 X 200 cm (diptych)

 

 

The Grace Cossington Smith Gallery closed due to government requirements to stop the spread of COVID-19.  Due to this closure, and uncertainties about a return to normal, we postponed the art award from 2020 until 2021, and the exhibition of finalists was held in 2022.

 

 

Related downloads
GCS art award 2021 Media Release	Download PDF
GCS art award 2021 Catalogue	Download PDF

 

 

Images courtesy and © the artists

Installation photography Richard Glover