NSW Artist Fiona Lowry has won the $60,000 Fleurieu Art Prize with a painting which the award’s chief judge describes as filling “the blurred psychological gap between what we see, feel, remember or dream”.
The award, known as the world’s richest landscape painting prize, was announced at d’Arenberg winery in McLaren Vale on Saturday night.
Judging panel head Nigel Hurst, director of London’s Saatchi Gallery, said the range, diversity and quality of the 1226 entries in the 2013 prize was impressive.
Lowry’s winning work, Alone With You, was chosen from a shortlist of 120 by Hurst and fellow judges Erica Green, of Samstag Museum, and artist Michael Zavros.
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“Choosing a winner from such a wide-ranging and strong shortlist exhibition has not been an easy job,” Hurst said.
“However, Fiona Lowry’s outstanding painting, which seems to fill a blurred psychological gap between what we see, feel, remember or dream, and her strong track record of making these arresting and sometimes disturbing landscapes, makes her a very worthy winner.”
The artist’s representative, Adelaide gallery owner Hugo Michell, described Alone With You as having an “unnerving haunting quality to it, alongside its obvious beauty”.
Lowry, a previous winner of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, was highly commended for her entry in this year’s Archibald Prize, and has also had works in the Sulman and Wynn finalist exhibitions.
All shortlisted Fleurieu Art Prize works will be exhibited at cellar doors and galleries in McLaren Vale, Goolwa and Strathalbyn until November 25, with visitors able to vote for a $2500 people’s choice winner to be announced in December. Other events associated with the prize include the Water and Environment Prize, a sculpture exhibition and a sustainability event on November 9.