RIPE Winners Announced!

The winners of the February round of the RIPE Art & Australia / ANZ Private Bank Contemporary Art Award are:

Mark Hilton
Helen Johnson

NAVA congratulates both of these outstanding artists who were selected from over 100 applicants. The 20 shortlisted finalists for the award were:

Monika Behrens (Highly Commended)
Penny Byrne
Michelle Hamer
Mark Hilton (Highly Commended)
Therese Howard
Helen Johnson (Highly Commended)
Karena Keys (Highly Commended)
Alice Lang
Kenzie Larsen
Alex Lawler (Highly Commended)
Owen Leong (Highly Commended)
Vivienne Miller (Highly Commended)
Lara O’Reilly (Highly Commended)
Victoria Reichelt (Highly Commended)
Rachel Scott
Mark Shorter
Kylie Stillman (Highly Commended)
Nathan Taylor
Christian Thompson (Highly Commended)
Joshua Webb

The RIPE: Art and Australia/ANZ Private Bank Emerging Artists Scheme promotes the work of emerging artists, publishing an image of the winner's work on the back cover of Art & Australia magazine. RIPE recipients are further supported via the purchase of at least one of their artworks. Entrants must be visual artists who have been practising professionally for no more than five years, and who have had their work publicly exhibited.

The shortlist of 20 artists for the February round were selected by members Art & Australia advisory board. The final decision is made by staff of Art & Australia (in consultation with the advisory board).

This is an Art & Australia scheme supported by ANZ Private Bank, administered by NAVA.

Art & Australia is published quarterly in March, June, September and December.

First grant winners for 2007

NAVA is pleased to announce the first round of grant winners for this year. The following successful applicants have received their Janet Holmes à Court and Visual and Craft Artists Grant, which will financially assist them in the presentation or exhibition of their artwork.

Winners for the February round of the Janet Holmes à Court Artists' Grant/Visual and Craft Artists' Grant Scheme are:

Jane Barney, ACT $500
towards her Miscellaneous Correspondence conference and exhibition;

Kevin Todd, QLD $550
towards printing a catalogue and freighting works of computer generated organic forms;

Tracy Cornish, SA $500
towards mounting of photographic works for her solo exhibition;

Shoufay Derz, NSW $500
towards space rental, travel costs and promotion of a collaborative video installation;

Anthea Williams, VIC $550
towards freight and documentation of her exhibition of exhibition;

Sandy Elverd, SA $500
towards travel costs for participating in the 12th International Triennial of Tapestry;

Sue Codee, WA and Jenny Crisp, WA $1100
towards a catalogue and mail-out for an exhibition of work created as a result of a mentoring program;

Nicholas Uhlmann $500
towards freight for a sculpture in an exhibition in England;

Anna Gianakis, ACT and Avi Amesbury, ACT $1000
towards freight and insurance of ceramic works participating in New Craft - Future Voices, Scotland.

Richard Skinner, TAS and Sally Brown, TAS $1000
towards the production of an exhibition catalogue showcasing emerging Tasmanian designers.

Congratulations to all and we hope to see blog posts by some of these artists about their experiences in the weeks to come.

On Desolation Row: the Marketing Grant, part two

The application was a bit more of a rush than was ideal. I had to wait till Peter had the chance to visit and we could talk about it all and I could get some of the information I needed. He was very generous with his assistance, suggesting some ‘names’ I could put in the marketing strategy, and in what context, and filling me in on all the details I was unsure about.

DESOLATION ROW (detail), at Silvershot. Installation of 28 sculptures, Dimensions variable. Max. height approx. 1.9 metres. Paper, textiles, mixed media. The Ergas Collection, Canberra.
Jade Pegler, 2006.

To be honest I found the application process kind of weird. This would have more to do with my own naivete regarding these things than any inherent weirdness. Nearly a year has passed since I applied, and with a little more experience with that sort of thing I don’t think it so strange, but I remember that’s what I thought at the time. Part of the reason was needing to be so exact with the income and expenditure, (which have to be equal) when so much of what you put in to calculate these is really just your best guess, like the time you've put into the project (to calculate labour costs). All that ‘educated guessing’ made me a bit nervous.

For me quite a few things turned out differently. I was very wrong about ‘estimated income from sale of work’ – I was lucky, it was all bought for the Ergas Collection.

I learnt a lot. At first I had a lot of trouble getting my income to equal the expenditure, mainly because the gallery was donating the space so that had to be part of the income. Eventually someone told me that it could also be included in the expenses bit.

Despite the hard work it was well worth the effort. I did not have to borrow money, and was able to do things like visit galleries (useful research), meet with artists, collectors and curators, and of course, document the work, which had been impossible to do half-decently before it was in the gallery, despite several attempts.

Some other good things to come out of it are that I was commissioned to make five large sculptures and will be having a show in Sydney later in the year.

More photos of the work here and on my website.