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ARTHUR GUY MEMORIAL PAINTING PRIZE
Previous winners
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| 2003
Winner of the inaugural Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize in 2003 was Stieg Persson, for his work Middle Management. The work was considered by the judges to be the most outstanding single work entered in a field that included some of the most significant names in Australian contemporary art. The winning work will now become part of the Bendigo Art Gallery's own collection.
Stieg Persson was the subject of a touring survey exhibition Backmasking: The art of Stieg Persson and has participated in more than 16 solo exhibitions. The artist is represented in numerous international, national, state and regional collections.
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2005
Dale Frank was selected out of 41 short listed artists from around Australia and received a $50,000 cash acquisitive prize. Judge Rachel Kent, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney commented, ‘Dale Frank has explored representational and more abstract modes in his art over the past two decades. In this work, pools of poured coloured varnish create a rich and tactile surface. The exhibition of finalists represents a great opportunity to view works by over 40 contemporary Australian painters. It provides an insight into key themes and concerns shaping Australian painting now, and reflects the healthy state of the medium. The selection of an award recipient was a difficult process due to the high standard of exhibited works, and the sustained practices of the participating artists.’
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2007
The 2007 prize was awarded to Stephen Bush for his monumental work Jerks as a passable frown.
The work was selected by the panel of judges from more than 340 entrants (42 short listed paintings).
Based in Melbourne, Stephen Bush has been a practicing artist for almost 30 years. Since graduating from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1978, Bush has exhibited extensively across Australia and the United States. Bush’s painting is extensive and varied, he engages with a diverse range of subjects from the real to the sublime. His latest series of works, depicts majestic natural landscapes made surreal by his use of lurid pinks and greens. Into these landscapes Bush inserts emblems of human occupation – a potbelly stove, a small building – seemingly at odds with the surrounding landscape. We have a sense of an environment of seemingly contradictory elements – the beauty and untamed aspects of nature juxtaposed with humanity’s attempts at control and cultivation.
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2009
The 2009 Prize was awarded to Melbourne based artist Jan Nelson. The outstanding photo-realist painting Tom shows with remarkable technical virtuosity what is possible at the juncture of painting and photography. Although a painting, the stunning work hints at the obsession with youth and image in modern culture.
The judges commented, ‘Walking in Tall Grass (Tom) is a luminous painting that packs a punch despite its small size. It is an accomplished synthesis of style and subject, characterised by a conscious appropriation of contradictory styles that we recognise as decidedly contemporary. Its heightened colour, amazing detail and the scene in the mirrored sunglasses draw us into the world of the character Nelson depicts.'
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| image captions from top
Stieg Persson, Middle Management 2002, oil on cotton duck. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
Dale Frank
Three Lies: Good things come in small packages;
Nothing is interesting if you are not interested;
One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
They will show you everything they have – their sexy bodies.
When the student is ready, the master will appear.
Laughter is the closest distance between two people while Happiness is not a state of mind, but a manner of travelling. Tarampa Hotel, Tarampa Road, 2004 2004-05
acrylic, varnish on linen canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
Stephen Bush
Jerks as a Passable Frown2006
oil and enamel on linen
Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery
Jan Nelson
Walking in Tall Grass (Tom) 2009
oil on linen
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery
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