KILGOUR PRIZE 2017

Sally ANDERSON
born 1990 Lismore NSW
Yourself and your painting of The East MacDonnell Ranges (like the one hanging in our house)  2017
acrylic on board
55.0 x 60.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane

Yourself and your painting of The East MacDonnell Ranges (like the one hanging in our house) is a portrait of the artist (and my partner) Guy Maestri. Guy's head appears floating above one of his painted landscapes, both referencing a Joel Silbersher song (Floating Heads) and forcing us to view him in-situ or coupled with his work: a context familiar to him and to the audience. The choice of landscape 'like the one in our house' suggests a more personal tone to this portrait and thus invites the audience to consider relationships between public and private spaces/lives and their impact on our identity and character.

Michael BELL
born 1959 Maitland NSW
Seven self-portraits  2017
oil on aluminium and board
140.0 x 120.0cm
Artist collection

This picture is based on things I do and things I think about almost everyday.

Ann Maree CLARK
born 1975 Canberra ACT
The Daughters of Colin Clark  2017
oil on linen
56.0 x 72.0cm
Artist collection

The thing about painting children, is that it’s impossible to work in the usual contemplative way - all thought suspended, the scent of turpentine mingled with thick silence, every distraction subsumed by the puzzle of tones and shapes that the subject presents. With children there is constant movement, conversation, videos, tea breaks, quick snacks, sips of water and helpful ‘looks’ to see how the painting is coming along. There must also, of course, be the promise of fair compensation which, by the time the painting is finished, has probably been renegotiated several times and will likely involve a dog. The best painting happens in those fleeting moments when the sitters unite with the painter in the common goal of getting a good likeness, and doing justice to their unique beauty, especially of the soft toys involved. I don’t know if, aged 26, John Singer Sargent possessed these excellent powers of persuasion when he painted The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. I suspect the Boit girls were at least a little bit in awe of that young master at work.

Jerome DOBINSON
born 1974 London ENGLAND
Medusa  2017
acrylic on canvas
175.0 x 105.0cm
Artist collection

From antiquity to the present day, the myth of Medusa has long been associated with issues related to sexuality, gender and mortality. She features heavily in modern literature, has been used for the logo of the Versace fashion brand and in recent times has become a feminist icon symbolising female rage and hostility.

This inspired me to create a painting that held within its composition a ‘Medusa like’ effect. Pixelation seemed the perfect graphic device to visually achieve an ‘aha!’ moment. Bitmaps have become ubiquitous in our computer driven society and they enable one to carefully control the level of abstraction, resulting in a piece that responds to both the audience and the space in which it is hung. At close range the artwork appears to be a hard edged abstract painting, however, when viewed from a distance, it is clearly a naked figure. How one responds to this micro event is entirely dependent upon an individuals life experience.

At the moment of realisation an emotional response is triggered. Whether someone sees the work as a social comment on the seductive forces of computer technologies or as a part of a long line of figurative paintings. It is the emotional engagement with the work that interests me, illustrating the complex nature of the subject/object relationship. Some may respond positively to the work, whilst others may be ‘turned to stone’ emotionally, challenged by the appearance of a life size naked figure.

John EARLE
born 1955 Newcastle NSW
Beach Scene with Sand and Figures  2017
oil on canvas
60.0 x 62.0cm
Artist collection

I guess I must be obsessed by beaches… rain, hail or shine.  There are many beautiful and complex scenes to be found where water meets land. This beach scene doesn’t include the ocean or any body of water… the human forms and their colours bright against the beige is the subject here. Every person spaced evenly on a field of sand.

Yvonne EAST
born 1977 Meningie SA
Golden boy  2017
oil and mica on Belgian Linen
56.0 x 41.0cm
Artist collection

Dan is a good friend. He has a sweetness about him. Some people you meet and you know that they see the beautiful things. This is alongside all of the complexity of being human trying to navigate the world. I have a son who is 11 years old. He is a sensitive beautiful soul. I see the beauty in my son and I see the beauty in Dan. I wonder why I don't see the beauty of these young men celebrated. This painting is about the way that I see them.

John EDWARDS
born 1956 Sydney NSW
Young Mary-Ann Bugg on the Run  2017
oil on canvas
150.0 x 120.0cm
Artist collection, represented by King Street Gallery on William, Sydney

Narratives surrounding convict and bushranger images are integral to an Australian psyche with figures such as Ned Kelly, Captain Thunderbolt and Jack Doolan thriving in the imagination.

Bush ballads are penned and images painted about such figures famed for stealing, philandering, 'mateyness' and murder. Despite such waywardness they attract enormous sympathy and public intrigue, in part because of skill and stealth in evading the law.

Less is known about their feisty, gun-toting partners. One such woman was the Indigenous Mary-Ann Bugg, also known as 'Black Mary'. She was Thunderbolt’s, 'the gentleman bushranger' second wife.

In Young Mary-Ann Bugg on the Run I wanted to capture something of the resilience of female bushrangers, imagining ways they might have endured or enjoyed bushranging and family life.

I am attracted to Sidney Nolan’s 'Kelly' paintings with their brilliant colour and modernist depiction of home-made armour hammered out of ploughs. Kelly’s masked dressing has something of the spirit and grit of an Australian ethos of 'making do'.

By transposing the visual narrative of Kelly to that of Mary-Ann Bugg I hoped to create a painting that recalibrated both the myth and the Nolan image in history’s documentation of place.

As such Young Mary-Ann Bugg on the Run, is homage to all bushrangers, convicts and settlers that took pride in colluding, conspiring and working to survive.

Anna GLYNN
born 1958 Melbourne VIC
Colonial Hybrid: George Raper Kangooroo of New Holland 1789 in evening dress from Anna King 1805  2017
ink, watercolour & pencil on Arches paper
102.0 x 66.0cm
Artist collection

Colonial Hybrid is a composite work, an amalgamation of historical imagery both real and reimagined. In Governor John Hunter’s late 1700s journal kept on board the Sirius, on seeing the Australian landscape and flora and fauna for the first time he described the creatures he saw as coming about through ‘a promiscuous intercourse between the different sexes of all these different animals’.

I have expanded and elaborated on Hunter’s idea of 'promiscuous intercourse' to create my own strange antipodean creature, a hybrid manifestation of colonial fauna illustration and the human form cloaked in surviving costumery.

Lucas GROGAN
born 1984 Cooma NSW
THE WRESTLERS  2016
ink, acrylic and enamel on archival matt board
182.0 x 122.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide

These are two star crossed lovers wrestling with how to 'make it', in the face of numerous obstacles, both external and internal. Whilst committed and connected, these two figures are at odds with one another. Ultimately they are one creature trying to work out their problems and form a new destiny.

Tanya JACEGLAV
born 1969 Kalgoorlie WA
When I was two they asked me where my dad was  2016
oil on marine ply
61.0 x 80.0cm
Artist collection

When I was two they asked me where my dad was  is part of 'Fragments', a body of work that investigates themes of nostalgia, memory and identity. Using 1960s-70s family photographic slides as a point of departure, I applied paint both abstractedly and figuratively, exploring the process of memory and the construction of our own personal narrative.

Tony LLOYD
born 1970 Melbourne VIC
Mt Assiniboine with jet and my shadow  2017
oil on linen
61.0 x 1370cm
Artist collection, represented by Gallery 9, Sydney

This is the second time I have painted this mountain. While painting it this time, I noticed that there was a shadow in the lower part of the mountain which looked like a human profile. Sometimes I feel that the landscapes I paint are more representative of me than any conventional portrait could be. I put the shadow of my profile on this mountain to create an expanded idea of a self portrait.

Lauren MAY
born 1985 Auckland NZ
Inside arch of the foot  2017
oil paint on board
30.0 x 30.0cm
Artist collection

My work is an investigation into the depiction of skin. Based on the traditional techniques of figurative painting, my process creates luminous skin surfaces through layering of translucent glazes of unmixed pigments.

In my current series of works, I have magnified a small surface area of the body; closely examining the textures, terrain and topography of the body. Exposing skin as a strange, luminous, obscure space that is, numinous yet mundane.  Furthering my investigation into the experience of inhabiting a body, by exploring the body as a landscape.

Frankie MORGAN
born 1969 Sydney NSW
Country childhood  2016
pigment and binder on ceramic board
30.0 x 24.0cm
Artist collection

I use a playful palette to describe the experience of living in this world. My portraits and landscapes are rendered with an increasingly personal vocabulary of colour and mark making. I prefer materials which emphasise the presence of my hand in my study of light and shadow. Currently I am exploring the possibilities of transparency with pigment and glue on ceramic board. This dynamic medium emphasises the smooth white surface it rests upon. I seek to describe the experience of clarity and doubt, movement and stillness. My work investigates childhood as a personal exploration into family inheritance.

John MORRIS
born 1954 Newcastle NSW
Janus-faced  2017
acrylic on canvas
100.0 x 99.0cm
Artist collection

It takes only minor intervention to turn an image, which seems to be a configuration of geometric abstraction, into the recognisable symbol of the human face. Perceptual aberrations reconfigure the image as the amount of information is witheld and a level of geometric severity becomes more pronounced. The image becomes a perceptual game where one recognition duals with another.

KILGOUR PRIZE 2017 People's choice:

Rebecca MURRAY
SOME LIKE IT HOT  2017
oil on canvas
80.0 x 90.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Flying Spanners Gallery, Teralba

Betty and Ken carefully sashayed into my gallery-cafe and ordered coffee. As I delivered the small cup to Ken and the large Betty - always the large one to Betty - I was soon to be informed that they were 89 and 90 years old. I instantly liked them, they were joyous and gentle with each other, and very 'old Australia'.

Before leaving Ken decided he needed to sing and proceeded to serenade his wife of 69 years with his rendition of 'If You Were The Only Girl In The World'. I saw them to the door with tears in my eyes, which soon became an uncontrolled cry as I watched Ken cradle his sweetheart's arm and help her to the car. He drove off.

Ken and Betty now visit me and the gallery-cafe at least once a week, either on their own or amongst loving friends and family. Ken is always quick with a joke or anecdote, and can recite the whole of 'The Man From Snowy River'. Betty, though quiet is often mischievous with her thoughts, and revels these in abundance, especially around food!

My admiration and respect for these two beautiful souls are a reflection of their admiration and respect for each other. They are an inspiration and though age has wearied them, their love for each other burns as brightly as it did when first they danced together at the Annual Industry Dance at Speers Point Hall in 1945.

Adam OSTE
born 1994 Sydney NSW
Christmas Holidays  2017
oil on canvas
95.0 x 95.0cm
Artist collection

This painting is part of a wider body of work wherein I have been exploring the mediated landscapes of national parks, barbecue areas, campgrounds and nature reserves. Marcia Langton AM who holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Melbourne, has described these spaces as ‘constructed wilderness,’ as they appear to be ‘natural’ landscapes, untended by human hands yet somewhat constructed by them. There is an inherent erasure of habitation in the illusion of 'wilderness'. This painting intends to move towards the precipice of representation, where mimesis and illusion threatens to collapse.

Lori PENSINI
born 1970 Narrogin WA
Woman with Mullet  2017
oil on canvas
101.0 x 76.0cm
Artist collection

Woman with Mullet in a physical sense is a satirical play on words: it is exactly that - a woman with mullet. Metaphysically however, this piece highlights mental well being and scrutinises the role of women in society, and the somewhat foreboding pressures of portraying perfection. The woman sits quietly, serene with a composed contemplative bearing. This seemingly comfortable outward projection is a parody to her inner misgivings and despondency, which is represented by the lifeless fish prostrate across her head. I chose to dress the woman in period to express the ‘keeping up appearances’ and desolation is not a modern day phenomena.

Tom PHILLIPS
born 1967 Adelaide SA
Endangered Species  2017
oil on canvas
167.0 x 198.0cm
Artist collection

In Endangered Species, I examine the fallout of globalisation and the death of manufacturing. Factory workers are becoming an endangered species in our post-industrial world. The workers feel they have been abandoned and forgotten as they see their manufacturing jobs disappearing at an alarming rate. You only need to look at the news on the television to see the anger and frustration of the manufacturer around the world as they feel that they are becoming in danger of extinction within our society.

I see myself as a paint brush warrior and social commentator, as I work mainly in an expressive figurative style. As an artist I believe art should say something about the world that we live in. Therefore my role is not to provide answers but to question - my paintings have always been about the human experience and its struggles.

I hold back no punches in my mark making; I let my brushes do the talking for me. I choose to use the marks as a vehicle to express my ideas through paint. I try to see some kind of a relationship between abstraction and figuration. As I wrestle with the two styles on my canvas, I do not know how my paintings will look like when they are finished. Therefore the process creates a tension and a kind of aggressive energy.

Liam POWER
born 1988 Sydney NSW
Butcher with Meat Cleaver  2017
oil on canvas
180.5 x 173.5cm
Artist collection

Butcher with Meat Cleaver depicts a white male figure, bare torso, working intensely on a portion of flesh and bone. With the cleaver raised and arm extended for maximum charge, the figure gazes outwards, looking back at the viewer, mid-motion as the next precise sweep of the cleaver is to be made.

The painting is an allegorical study that alternates between butcher and artist. The portion of meat is reduced to a pulp, pulverized into a compilation of dabs, slashes and faded brush marks. The figure, a self-portrait, wields the meat cleaver without consequence. The proximity of the other hand is unsettling, yet this is deliberate. A polarity between butcher and artist is played out, an interesting conversation that is inherent to my approach to painting.

Breaking down the beast with precise movements, specific junctures between bone and flesh allows the cleaver to seemingly pass through effortlessly, which reduces the meat into more manageable portions. These are then sliced and aesthetically arranged on meat trays and displayed under pink fluorescent lights to enhance the visual appearance. The meat is now ready for consumption.

Jordan RICHARDSON
A Knife in the Eye  2017
oil on aluminium composite panel
24.0 x 20.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Michael Reid, Sydney

Depicted is a man, his gaze turned away from the viewer with a violent scraping seen in his eye. There is a great depth which is not created through illusionary space but through the layering of paint. These layers are merged and broken as the whole panel appears to have been abused with traces of scrapes and cuts littered across the paintings surface. This portrait shares with us a history of the artist’s thinking and technical execution where the material narrative takes centre stage.

Paul RYAN
born 1964 Auckland NZ
Me and the boys  2017
oil on mixed media
245.0 x 156.0cm
Artist collection

This is a portrait of me aged 22 with friends. Some are real and others imagined. It is a painting about growing into manhood in a hard drinking, drug taking, misogynist, 'blokey' Aussie culture. Some of us survived some didn't. All of us have been scarred in some way. It is also a painting about turning fifty and realising I am no longer a youth and at the same time I am not 'old' yet either. This piece took over five years to make, it is a collection of works brought together to make a whole. The piece is tied together with great blobs of oil paint thrown at the canvases, as my younger self was venting love, anger, sex, joy and frustration, in a kind of existential catharsis.

Nigel SENSE
born 1976 Wollongong NSW
Christopher Minko with self portrait  2017
acrylic on canvas
152.0 x 122.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Fox Galleries, Melbourne

Christopher Minko with self portrait illustrates the struggle of being an artist, in this case painting a portrait while holding down a day job. The disjointed self-portrait overlay mimics my state of mind at the end of my working day. Instead of trying to clear my thoughts from the days distractions, I paint them: conversations, emails, phone calls, what my work colleagues have for morning tea, everything goes down on the canvas, like a Saturday night after too many beers.

John SKILLINGTON
born 1955 Sydney NSW
'belief'  2016
oil on frame folded heavy-weight paper
57.0 x 38.5cm
Artist collection

An artwork in two interconnecting parts, both physical and thematic. An allegory for the blind acceptance of dogma in the face of all evidence to the contrary. This painting is part of a series of works that illustrate themes of contemporary belief while referencing approaches that recall religious themes of the past.

Tony SLATER
A man rising from his chair?   2017
oil on canvas
120.5 x 137.5cm
Artist collection, represented by Defiance Gallery, Sydney

Shortly after arriving in Australia I helped another painter build a studio in a remote valley. Everything about the procedure: felling and barking the timber, erecting the round poles, the presence of the wilderness, were all utterly inconceivable in England, made a lasting impression. 

The use of a figure as an indication of a building and bush background stems from that time. Initially the figure was the 'verticle invader' against a wall of bush but in other paintings, he has become seated and recently in this painting, seems stuck between standing and sitting - or perhaps just noticed or heard something.

KILGOUR PRIZE 2017 Winner:

Cameron STEAD
born 1988 Orange NSW
Between you and me  2017
oil and acrylic on latex
60.0 x 50.0cm
Artist collection

The saying goes: write what you know. I think the same can be said for making art and there is much of myself I’m yet to understand. Often perplexed by my own desires, thoughts and actions, I have chosen to paint a self portrait with the intent of interrogation and self-discovery.

Painting for me offers an opportunity to investigate, expose and make sense of the paradoxes and dualisms played out every day, and more specifically in the art-making process itself. Of particular concern are the relationships between form and subject, the tangible and elusory.

The act of auto asphyxiation - suffocating, enwrapped in a plastic bag - represents a moment of distress, but also gratification. My choice to work on natural latex was an intuitive one, a need to examine the formal qualities of the painted surface and the painting as an object. While I normally work to archival standards, the very support for this painting, the latex, will discolour and even deteriorate over time. In many ways, this self portrait is a metaphor for the felt ironies of art-making; its peaks and troughs; fetishisation and abhorrence; introspection and exhibition.

Robin Lennox STEWART
born 1941 Melbourne VIC
The Dresser  2016
oil on linen
95.0 x 95.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Mossgreen Gallery, Melbourne

The circumstances of my paintings depict a modern human predicament: the pressure of commercial life. 

The speed of needs and appointments is never-ending and the business of thinking alone is hard to find.

Isolation is the manager. We are busy being alone.

The People. My people toil quietly, fulfilling a task which must be completed. Home is far away. A building must be locked. A cleaner begins his work.

The language. My territory is Figurative Modern.

My basic language is geometry, emotions are implicit, anguish is sometimes there, tension rises, happiness emerges or simple absorption. And a story is about to occur. The Greeks said geometry had a hidden meaning.

And it seems so with people and their modern predicament.

Mark TWEEDIE
It wasn’t supposed to be like this  2016
oil on canvas
152.0 x 107.0cm
Artist collection

Family bonds and interpersonal stories form the foundations of my work. Loved ones battling ageing, fading health, and facing their own mortality, are enduring narratives in my practice. The subject of this work is a much loved family friend who was suffering from a terminal illness during the making of this portrait; Ken Bindle lived and died in Newcastle, NSW. We shared several conversations about his illness and the emotions he was experiencing as he approached the end of his life. Ultimately Ken expressed to me three concise questions: "Who have I been?", "Where am I going?" and "What am I leaving behind?”

John R WALKER
born 1957 Sydney NSW
Nude and Hills Hoist  2016
archival oil on polyester, 2 panels
179.0 x 198.0cm
Artist collection, represented by Utopia Art, Sydney

Nude and Hills Hoist is a meditation of both the interior and exterior, in which the spatial placements of form and objects, frame and reference, both the past and present.

The idea behind the work came to me when simply watching some clothing on a nearby hills hoist in the rain and wind. For some reason it reminded me of a person naked in the interior of my bathroom.

Chee YONG
born 1975 Miri MALAYSIA
The Ghost of Convicts Past  2017
oil and enamel on wood
10.0 x 10.0cm
Artist collection

New South Wales or 'Van Dieman’s Land', 1788 to 1853 was to become one of the dumping grounds for Britain’s overflowing prison system. The transported convicts were assigned as cheap labour to free settlers or the government before earning their ticket to live as ordinary citizens. The stigma of a convict colony runs deep in the psyche and the colony was desperate to bury the past. Whilst The Ghost of Convicts Past no longer haunts the colony today, it has continuing impact on the cultural landscape of the place. It is interesting to note the polarities from the initial deliberate collective amnesia, to the acceptance and celebration of our convict heritage today.

Caroline ZILINSKY
born 1978 Sydney NSW
The Hooligan 2017
oil on linen
71.0 x 71.0cm
Artist collection

This is a portrait of violent criminal, Robert Foley who spent over half his life in prison and was acquitted of two life sentences, one in Thailand and one in Italy. While in Thailand, Foley wrote a book of poetry that was published and held to great acclaim. Somehow age has softened this tortured man who now leads a quiet life of peace and service to others, a feat that is rarely achieved for such a ravaged soul. In this painting he is reclining on his purple chaise lounge in his black custom made swimming stockings.