Congratulations to Sarah Contos for winning the inaugural Ramsay Art Prize. The Sydney-based artist won the acquisitive $100,000 award with her work Sarah Contos Presents: The Long Kiss Goodbye, which will now become part of the permanent collection at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA).
Nick Mitzevich, director of AGSA, described the winning piece as a “tour de force” and the artist’s most ambitious work to date.
“Previous works of art and exhibition histories are all captured in this textile time-capsule,” Mitzevich said, “making it a self-initiated retrospective of her life in art.”
The Ramsay Art Prize supports contemporary Australian artists under 40 working in any medium. The prize is presented by the James and Diana Ramsay Foundation and will be held every two years.
The judges of the 2017 Ramsay Art Prize were Rhana Devenport, director of the Auckland Art Gallery; contemporary Australian artist Nell; and Leigh Robb, curator of contemporary art at AGSA. Their decision was unanimous.
“Contos’s 21st century quilt spills over, and, like a new epic history tableaux, celebrates power women in all their glory with fireworks, sequins and PVC,” said Robb.
The work of all 21 finalists is on show in The 2017 Ramsay Art Prize exhibition.
Visitors can vote for the People’s Choice Prize, a non-acquisitive award of $15,000 which will be announced on 11 August 2017.
The 2017 Ramsay Art Prize exhibition
Art Gallery of South Australia
27 May – 27 August
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
For Lardil and Yangkaal writer and curator Maya Hodge, Archie Moore’s presentation at this year’s Venice Biennale is a powerful symbol of reckoning—one that asks the world to bear witness to the long shadows of colonial violence and clears space for possibilities ahead.
A new exhibition at the Australian National Capital Artists Inc (ANCA) asks 12 artists—including Dan Powers, S.A.Adair, Emma Beer and Lisa Sammut—to explore scale: from the miniature to the monumental.
bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country, curated by Jonathan Jones and now showing at Bundanon, highlights a long history of Indigenous art on the New South Wales south coast, with works and installations from Jones, Aunty Julie Freeman, Aunty Cheryl Davison, and Mickey of Ulladulla.
