Congratulations to Nicholas Blowers, who has won the 2024 Glover Prize for his painting Lake Bed. The Tasmanian-based artist wins $75,000 for the painting, which depicts Lake Gordon after falling water levels have exposed a drowned forest.
“In 2015, I went in search of a landscape that I briefly glimpsed on an ABC news report,” said Blowers. “The water level at Lake Gordon had fallen by 45 metres and a drowned forest had been revealed. It appeared to be an extraordinary scene of tree wreckage and this previously logged forest now stood in the daylight. It was a chaotic spectacle that immediately appealed to me.”
The 2024 Prize was judged by Mary Mulcahy, director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Ralph Hobbs, director of Nanda\Hobbs Gallery, and Malcom Bywaters, director of Academy Gallery.
In a joint statement, the judges said: “The winning work and the highly commended works this year took us on a journey of connection with the Tasmanian landscape. They went beyond being technically proficient or realistic renditions of landscapes and created connections to the landscape and, through their work, a connection to us.”
Among the 42 finalists, two have been highly commended: Raymond Arnold’s Death and the Past came up the Well-known Road and Georgia Hill’s Wynyard. The Hanger’s Choice Award went to Richard Allen’s ‘Leewulenna,’ Lake St Clair.
The exhibition is open to the public until Sunday 17 March, when two other prizes will be drawn: the People’s Choice and Children’s Choice, which receive $3,000 and $500 respectively.
2024 John Glover Prize Exhibition
Falls Park Pavilion Evandale
On now—17 March
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