Congratulations to Evan Pank for winning first prize in the 2017 Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC) Print Award. The Sydney-based artist took out the $16,000 acquisitive award with his screen-printed and spray-painted work, Keeping the Bastards Honest, 2016.
Pank is an emerging artist and this was the first time he had entered the annual printmaking prize.
This year the judges were Rebecca Beardmore, artist and lecturer in printmedia at the University of Sydney; Andre Lipscombe, curator of the City of Fremantle Art Collection; and Franchesca Cubillo, senior curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia. They selected Pank’s work from a field of 56 finalists.
According to the judges, “This year’s major acquisitive Award winning work by Evan Pank embodies the constructs of the mediated image, fusing spray paint and halftone screen-print of documentary style press images in a panoramic display of social unrest and urban street chaos. His work, Keeping the Bastards Honest, though politically charged is not necessarily politically motivated. He presents that liminal space between the festive and the fight in the apparent hostility unleashed by the spirit and energy of the crowd, making reference to the patriarchal fog and tribal culture of team sport.”
A second prize of $6000 was awarded to Melbourne-based artist Valerie Sparks for her digitally manipulated print, Prospero’s Island South West, 2016.
Works by all 56 finalists are currently on show in the FAC Print Award exhibition.
FAC Print Award
Fremantle Arts Centre
21 September – 12 November
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