The 57th Blake Prize

Winners Announced


LIST OF 2008 WINNERS:

  • - 57th Blake Prize – David Tucker, A Local Girl Comes Home
  • - John Coburn Award for Emerging Artists – Peter Daverington, Mevlana – The Dervish Series
  • - Blake Poetry Prize – Mark Tredinnick, “Have you seen”
  • - Highly Commended, 57th Blake Prize – Kay Alliband, Mum’s Angels
  • - Highly Commended, Blake Poetry Prize – Chloe Wilson, “Dorothy Wordsworth, Boling Turnips” and Mark Tredinnick, “Paradise”.

 

Pregnant Sculptures, whirling dervishes and the first ever poet take out Australia's top award for art and faith.

The Blake Prize of A$20,000 has been awarded to artist David Tucker for a sculptural work that depicts a procession of pregnant women and symbols of Egyptian, Christian and Hindu traditions. From over one thousand entries (more than double the previous year), Tucker’s work A Local Girl Comes Home was selected for its simple, positive joy, with judges praising its technical finesse as well as its conceptual resonance across various forms of faith. His and the ot her winning works and all short-listed works of art and poetry are on display as part of the Blake Prize Exhibition, from Friday 5th September until Saturday 4th October, at the National Art School Gallery, Sydney.

Peter Daverington has won the John Coburn Award for Emerging Artists for his work Mevlana – The Dervish Series, a category introduced in 2007. And poet Mark Tredinnick has taken out the first ever Blake Poetry Prize, a new category initiated this year. Other entries have been singled out as ‘highly commended’ works, both in the art and poetry categories. Kay Alliband was named ‘highly commended’ for the Blake Prize, for her set of 27 raku-fired ceramic Mum’s Angels. And in the Blake Poetry Prize, a work by young Melbourne poet Chloe Wilson and a second entry submitted by the major winner, Mark Tredinnick were also named ‘highly commended’. 

The winning poem “Have you seen” by Mark Tredinnick will appear in Wet Ink magazine and the poet awarded A$5,000. Selected works are printed and bound in hand-crafted books created individually by nine local book binders. These are on display as part of the Blake Prize exhibition.

The judges of the art prize, Lachlan Warner, Dr Kathleen McPhillips and Nick Vickers (who replaced Dr Christopher Allen after his withdrawal during the shortlisting process), were impressed with the high calibre of works entered this year and in particular, noted the strength, range and quality of the photo media entries in this year’s finalists’ exhibition. The winning work A Local Girl Comes Home was selected for its simple joy, and for its potent resonances with the spiritual traditions of Eastern cultures, particularly Hindu and Buddhist. It depicts a set of three naked, pregnant woman, a man and a cow in a procession, each carrying a sacred token, which is derived from the traditional figure of The Goddess, usually depicted with many arms each holding a symbol. In his interpretation of the figure, David Tucker creates one figure for each set of arms and symbolic token, adapting it for a contemporary, western context and merging it with personal inspirations for the work. After using friends as models for his work over the years, Tucker was inspired by the pregnancy of several of these friends to create a work that embraced this, fusing the ‘rites of passage’ of both his friends, and the traditional figure of The Goddess. The result is a sculptural work that brings together spiritual experiences of the timeless and the contemporary, public and personal, symbolic and actual.

The 57th Blake Prize exhibition is on show at the National Art School Gallery, Forbes St, Darlinghurst from Friday 5th September to Saturday 4th October, before going on regional tour. The gallery is open 10am – 4pm, Mon to Sat. Entry is free.