Australia Council Awards 2018

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Visual artists Pat Brassington and Nigel Helyer have both been honoured with awards from the Australia Council in 2018.

Pat Brassington, known for her psychologically fraught photographs, was awarded the Australia Council Visual Arts Award.

With a career spanning four decades, Tasmanian-based Brassington has created distinct personal imagery informed by surrealism, feminism and psychoanalysis.

“I aim to pitch my images just off the verge of normality, into those dense patches where the commonplace goes awry,” she said.

Nigel Helyer, a sculptor and sound artist, received the Australia Council Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts. Helyer, aka Dr Sonique, is in known for his interactive projects for museums, sound-sculptures and environmental artworks.

The Australia Council Awards recognise excellence in community arts and cultural development, literature, theatre, music, the visual arts, emerging and experimental arts, and dance. Nominations are made by industry peers, stressing the role each artist plays within their particular community.

Australia Council CEO Tony Grybowski said, “The recipients of the 2018 awards are leaders in their respective fields. They have individually and collectively made highly significant contributions to the development of artistic practice and to challenging existing ways of exploring how we express identity and how we connect with one another.”

News Words by Zara Sigglekow