Vision splendid: Art prize captures Brisbane from all sides
Hokusai gave us 36 views of Mt Fuji but this year’s Queen’s Wharf Brisbane Art Prize tops that with more than 40 views of Brisbane in the finalists’ exhibition.
Everything from gorgeous jacarandas to Bin Chickens – that’s what you get in this year’s Queen’s Wharf Brisbane Art Prize.
A partnership between Queen’s Wharf Brisbane and The Royal Queensland Art Society, Brisbane Branch, the prize is now an important fixture on our annual art scene, and you can see the work of the finalists now at Petrie Terrace Gallery.
This year the prize had 175 entries, drawing 48 finalists. Artists residing in Queensland were asked to submit an artwork that demonstrates what makes Brisbane and its surrounding attractions unique. In their work they tell the story of what they love about this place and their connection to it, through their art. And it’s amazing how different each vision splendid is and the array of styles artists offer.
All entries must be of a subject from the Greater Brisbane area (Brisbane City, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay and Redland City council areas) and accompanied by a statement describing the connection of the artwork to the location. It makes it all the more interesting to read why each artist chose to portray Brisbane the way they have done.
Judges were artists Mostyn Bramley-Moore, David Henderson and Sally Brand from QAGOMA. The awards night, with a shortlisted selection of 16 works from the finalist exhibition, was held at the Star Event Centre on August 10.
‘our city becomes that little bit richer and, most importantly, artists get a platform to share their work’
On the night, MC Sara Taghaode, executive producer of Kiosk Films and board director of the Creative Brisbane Collab, praised the collaboration behind it: “When organisations like the Royal Queensland Art Society Brisbane and Queen’s Wharf Brisbane come together, audiences discover new work, our city becomes that little bit richer and, most importantly, artists get a platform to share their work.”
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You’ll agree with those sentiments when you see the work on display.
The winner gets $20,000, which makes it a significant boon to artists. This year’s winner is Leigh Schoenheimer with RE_woke, a painting on two panels “whose imagery juxtaposes those complementary principles which dominate all human affairs … nature and culture”, according to the judges.
The work is part of a series that the artist describes as “expanded landscape paintings shaped by my daily encounters with Brisbane’s Toohey Forest”.
In this piece there is text as well as the landscape element and “language and image are brought together in a poetic dialogue, one that moves between observation and interpretation”, according to the artist.
“The use of the prefix ‘Re’ in each of the diptych works in this series suggests ideas of return, repair and renewal.”
One of two $5000 prizes for Highly Commended work went to Alexandra Matthews for her painting Unfurled at Walking Pace. This is a beautiful piece of realism that manages to capture the essence of Brisbane with an image of a cottage with the mountains in the background.
“As a child I often visited family living in Queensland cottages, unchanged since they were built and in various states of repair,” Matthews says. “I have fond memories of a slower time, loving homes and extended family across Queensland.”
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The other Highly Commended winner was Kym Mullen for This Cradled Coast in which “the light is just making its way through the dense mangrove roots to illuminate both the water teeming with life and the rich red of the mud”.
A couple of works that gained Special Mention status were Millions of Miles from the Madness by Gabi Mika-McNaughton, who finds respite in nature on Bribie Island; and Dylan Jones’s Preservation and Progress, a view of bridges and the river with the cityscape.
“The bridges endure as markers of continuity within this transforming landscape,” Jones writes in his artist statement. “As development accelerates, many of the structures that once defined the city’s character are gradually overshadowed or erased altogether. This work reflects on that tension between preservation and progress, and on the enduring presence of these bridges as witnesses to an ever-changing city.”
All the works in this finalist’s exhibition have something to say about Greater Brisbane and there are visions of parks, waterways, people, suburbs and the CBD, but also the wilder places within this geographical area.
One of my favourites is Lunch at the Powerhouse by Karen Collins. It shows a couple of Ibis, or Bin Chickens as they have become known, foraging on leftovers.
“At the table beside me, recently vacated by its human diners, a different lunch crowd had arrived – an ibis and a seagull, utterly unbothered, helping themselves to the leftover hot chips with the confidence of regulars who’d booked ahead,” says Collins. “There’s something so perfectly, absurdly Brisbane about it.”
You will find yourself nodding in agreement when you see this painting. It is just one the stories that makes up the rich tapestry of the Queen’s Wharf Art Prize.
Now how does that old jingle go …. “Love you Brisbane”. Exactly.
Queen’s Wharf Brisbane Art Prize is exhibited at Royal Queensland Art Society: Petrie Terrace Gallery, Brisbane City, until September 13. An Art Talks event with Mostyn Bramley-Moore is on August 23 at 2pm; and a Jazz Night event with Ashleigh Denning and Coppertop Entertainment is on August 28.
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