Kedumba Drawing Award, 2017
Orange Regional Gallery (acquired)
This is the sixth drawing of Maria’s garden. The beans cover every frame and trellis. The space is closed in, a vigorous green wonderland, that left unchecked, could take over the house.
Pastel, charcoal on Arches paper, 56 x 90cm
Winner, Drawing from Nature
ArchiGraphicsArts Competition of Architectural Drawings, Moscow, 2017
I felt it was very important to show the detail, because much of Maria’s philosophy “waste not, want not” is in those details. Maria has worked hard all her life since she arrived here at 14 years of age from a war torn Italy where she and her family often did not have enough to eat. Through her hard work and thrift, her garden has supplied her family with food. Nothing is ever wasted. The structural materials that make up her climbing frames, sheds and tools have been recycled from elsewhere. Plants come from cuttings and seeds she has saved. Water is collected from the roof, directed into rubbish bins and ladled out with a saucepan tied to a broomstick.
Charcoal, pastel on Arches paper, 45 x 72cm
Finalist, Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing 2017
It had been several months since I had first sketched in my neighbour Maria’s garden and I found it overtaken by the beans that now covered every frame and trellis. The space was more closed in, rooms of green with a central corridor, and it feels like those beans could take over the house, even the world. We had a harvest moon at this time, and again the garden was transformed by the intensity of the light of a super-moon, drained of colour but with a sharp clarity of detail and shadow.
Charcoal, pastel on Arches paper, 68 x 108cm
Finalist, Elaine Birmingham National Watercolour Prize 2017
I am interested in the remnant spaces and landscape between and behind buildings, and buildings that are unassuming, which may not even register with passers by. Are these places used and familiar to people or are they unnoticed, even abandoned? On a pre dawn walk I saw this boarding house – the windows lit like jewels.
Watercolour 46 x 92cm
Finalist Portia Geach Memorial Award
Semi-finalist Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
This painting is the sequel to the ‘EP Addiction’ ( scroll down). A long time devotee of the Easton Pearson label, I put on this limited edition brocade coat and I am again transported to a more glamorous world. Four months ago Pam and Lydia announced they were closing their shops and discontinuing their fashion line. I did feel bereft – is this the end of my addiction?
Oil on canvas, 55cm x 110cm
Winner People’s Choice Award
JADA ( Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award)
Grafton Regional Gallery, NSW
“Maria’s Garden, From The Back” recently won the Art Spectrum People’s Choice Award and was acquired by the Grafton Regional Gallery. “This detailed drawing won the popularity stakes hands down. Any time you were in the gallery when the 2016 JADA was on display there are visitors standing in front of this drawing of the artist’s neighbour’s garden” Jude McBean, Grafton Regional Gallery Director.
The fourth in this series, “Maria’s Garden, From the Back” is of my neighbour’s garden, with its history of Maria’s long marriage, her love of gardening and Italian post war migration in our inner city suburb of New Farm in Brisbane.
The 2016 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award has gone to Caboolture Regional Gallery for the first of its eight venue tour. The winner and four acquisitions along with the 41 finalists are set to tour until August 2018. After Caboolture Regional Art Gallery the 2016 JADA goes to University of the Sunshine Coast Gallery followed by Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery, Gympie Regional Gallery, Redland Art Gallery, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, Warwick Art Gallery and the New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale.
Winner – Significant 2D Work
Judges Ron Ramsey and Kyla McFarlane’s comments
“This work on paper displays the artist’s great skill at depicting a scene that is in an informal and casual setting, transformed into a stage of expectation and mystery. The artist has challenged themselves by depicting the scene not in daylight, but by the more gentle light of the moon. The composition’s central focus is not historic, monumental or grandiose, but rather a simple piece of children’s play equipment, the quintessential backyard trampoline.”
As an inner suburb of Brisbane with pressure for higher density living, New Farm is bustling with construction work for new developments and renovations. Inevitably, the demographic profile of our neighbourhood is shifting. I pass this backyard down a rarely used laneway often and enjoy the quiet view a neglected house and backyard. The weeds grow to waist height and the trampoline looks broken. This abandoned landscape must be familiar to some, perhaps home to remnant wildlife, and I wonder for how much longer.
Real estate advertising brochures feature glamorous high chroma illustrations of new units and houses. By setting this landscape under moonlight, the color has seeped away, and all is still and unchanging.
Stanthorpe Art Prize
Two of my works, “Maria’s Garden, Path” and “Moonlight Trampoline” have been selected as finalists for this year’s Stanthorpe Art Prize. With $33,000 in awards, more than 1400 images were submitted from 507 artists from Australia and overseas. This exhibition is the highlight of the Stanthorpe Art Festival which runs from 3rd June to 17th July.
The second in this series, “Maria’s Garden, Path” is of my neighbour’s garden, with its history of Maria’s long marriage and Italian post war migration.
“Morning Next Door” has been selected by juror Rodrigo Lopez for his Observational Juror’s Award in the American Society of Architectural Illustrators Architecture in Perspective 31 Exhibition opening in Boston in September this year.
JaneGrealyArtist 