Winners for this years Emerging Artist Awards
Molly Timmins and her proud sister.
With over 60 entries for this years Emerging Artist Award it was a difficult task of selecting 15 finalists. Again we aligned this year’s exhibition with mental health, with the theme of ‘Listen’.
The standard of work every year gets higher and higher and we were delighted to welcome artists from throughout New Zealand. The gallery was privileged to have guest judges, Taimi Allan CEO of Changing Minds, Ioana Gordon-Smith curator from Te Uru gallery and award-winning artist Andy Leleisi'uao. After 3 hours the judges made their decision and winners were announced at the opening night.
As manager and curator, it is always my favourite exhibition of the year and I always feel so privileged to meet and encourage the artists that are brave enough to show and share their own struggles with mental health through their art. I have come to forge many wonderful friendships and am always humbled by the words of thanks I get. This really is what I love to do and I count myself as very lucky to have such an amazing job, surrounded by my passion, the arts.
This year’s first prize winner of $2000 was Molly Timmins a fine art student of Whitecliff Arts and Design School, with her work titled Handle With Care.
"Anxiety is something I've struggled with my whole life, and my work Handle With Care is a direct projection of the restlessness that comes with it for me. It was nerve-wracking to display the vulnerability behind this artwork, but seeing the exhibition of all the amazing artists with mental health struggles and triumphs made me realise how important it is to sometimes show your vulnerability in hopes of changing society's perception of it."
Handle with Care at first appears to be a piece of bubble wrap stuck behind the glass of a black frame, many viewers walked straight past this work. But the bubble wrap draws you back and on further inspection, you see that each individual bubble has been drawn with white pastel on a black background, no two bubbles are the same!
Ioana Gordon-Smith had this to say “This was the work I kept returning to. From thinking it was actual bubble wrap to assuming it was a printed image, to finally realising it was a drawing, Handle with Care was a slow-release that revealed more and more with each viewing.
Bubble wrap is immediately familiar to many of us. We know that immediate urge that comes over when we see it; you can almost hear the pop of the bubble under our fingers. Framed behind glass, the bubble wrap stays fixed in the moment before that satisfying burst. The work remains protected; silent. It’s a clever response to the exhibition’s theme, listen, as the sound we know remains just out of reach, ignited only in our minds.
The work successfully plays off expectations of immediate gratification. While the pop of a bubble - inherently an act of destruction - is denied, the focus turns to the drawing and creation of the bubbles. Note that they’re not uniform; these are not manic circles. Instead, each bubble is unique, each carefully crafted to give the illusion of three-dimension. Patience and attentiveness has created this work. Rejecting the quick desire to pop, this work offers another way to keep idle hands busy.”
Molly was awarded the first prize of $2000, sponsored by https://ember.org.nz/.
Other winners for Emerging Artist Awards - Listen, 2019 are:
Second prize of $1000, Tongariro King for Hauora, sponsored by The Upstairs Gallery.
Peoples Choice of $500, Kath Wood for Pecked Dry, sponsored by The Upstairs Gallery.
Doug Robertson Award of $200, Kath Wood for Pecked Dry, sponsored by The Upstairs Gallery and Sue Robertson.
Adison Whitley Award of $250, Victoria McNaughton for Undercover, sponsored by David Whitley.
Mad Hatters Prize of $200, Jack Henderson for Talk talk, Listen listen, Cuppa Tea, sponsored by https://changingminds.org.nz/.
We are so proud of this exhibition and the winners for 2019, and we look forward to next year.