Winner 2011 Molly Morpeth Canaday Major Award - Evan Woodruffe - Auckland
Title - 'Untitled (02-14)'
In our digital age, when it no longer need record the natural world, painting must redefine its role in order to remain relevant as a 21C art form. Artists must use the medium to create something no other media can: celebrate its properties, its versatility, its unique energy.
The winning work does this masterfully. Its complex composition is filled with movement, tension and mystery. It offers texture and subtle variations in colour. It was not the work I immediately identified as the winner, but it was the one I kept coming back to, finding something new and engaging on each view, and the image remained with me long after I left it behind. For me, that's the definition of art.
Jennifer Buckley - (Judge 2011)
In our digital age, when it no longer need record the natural world, painting must redefine its role in order to remain relevant as a 21C art form. Artists must use the medium to create something no other media can: celebrate its properties, its versatility, its unique energy.
The winning work does this masterfully. Its complex composition is filled with movement, tension and mystery. It offers texture and subtle variations in colour. It was not the work I immediately identified as the winner, but it was the one I kept coming back to, finding something new and engaging on each view, and the image remained with me long after I left it behind. For me, that's the definition of art.
Jennifer Buckley - (Judge 2011)
Winner 2010 Molly Morpeth Canaday Major Award - Belinda Griffith - Auckland
Title - Amongst Strangers.
'This work combines the language of painting and drawing into a single highly effective statement. There is just a enough visual information and detail provided, which considered with the title, 'Amongst Stranger', allows the viewer to engage with the work and begin to speculate on a possible narrative which this individual image might well be part of. The work is a model of expressive force achieved with confident handling of a medium and pared down colour range.'
Henry Symonds (Judge 2010)
'This work combines the language of painting and drawing into a single highly effective statement. There is just a enough visual information and detail provided, which considered with the title, 'Amongst Stranger', allows the viewer to engage with the work and begin to speculate on a possible narrative which this individual image might well be part of. The work is a model of expressive force achieved with confident handling of a medium and pared down colour range.'
Henry Symonds (Judge 2010)
Winner 2009 - Jennifer Majeski - Queenstown
Title - Samantha's World - Judge - Richard Fahey
Mr Fahey said depite the paintings diminutive size (the smallest in the exhibition), he kept coming back to it as it "slowly unravelled it's charms". "It's a special little work" he said. "It is so easy to sentimentalise a young girls innocence and it can often boarder in cliche territory but this doesn't, it resists it. Small works can be very powerful and this really works as a small scale work - all it's intensity is compressed.
Beacon January 2009
Mr Fahey said depite the paintings diminutive size (the smallest in the exhibition), he kept coming back to it as it "slowly unravelled it's charms". "It's a special little work" he said. "It is so easy to sentimentalise a young girls innocence and it can often boarder in cliche territory but this doesn't, it resists it. Small works can be very powerful and this really works as a small scale work - all it's intensity is compressed.
Beacon January 2009
Winner 2008 - Kereama Taepa
Title - 'Baby Girl' Judge - Ross Hemera
Winner 2007 - Gary Freemantle - Wellington
Title - 'Tux' Judge - Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Image courtesy of John Twaddle and Whakatane District Museum and Gallery)
Judge Jonathan Mane-Wheoki said Mr Freemantle's work was "visually arresting and intriguing." The style reminded him of works by Dutch masters of the 17th century who were students of Rembrandt. He said it was very technically accomplished with microscopic brushwork.
Beacon January 2007
Judge Jonathan Mane-Wheoki said Mr Freemantle's work was "visually arresting and intriguing." The style reminded him of works by Dutch masters of the 17th century who were students of Rembrandt. He said it was very technically accomplished with microscopic brushwork.
Beacon January 2007
Winner 2006 - Peata Larkin
Title - Whati@.com.ptng Judge - Michael Armstrong
Winner 2005 - Sofia Minson - & Luke Hollis - (Joint winners)
Sofia Minson - Title 'Saffron Monk' and Luke Hollis - Title 'The Veil of Lynnaire' - Judge - Simon Ogden
Winner 2004 - Grant Whibley
Title - 'Te Whiti and Te Tohu in Reflection - Judge -Joan Fear
Winner 2003 - Jim Thomas
Title - 'Raetihi Fence Line' Judge - Michael Smither
Winner 2002 - Rozi Demant
Title - 'The Performers' Judge- Carole Shepherd
Winner 2001 - Ron Hall
Title - 'Box Exposed' Judge - Barry Lett
Winner 2000 - Helen Lees
Title - 'Pink Beret' - Judge - Marie Cass
Winner 1999 - Peter Stichbury
Title - 'Study for Bleibtreu-Cordelia' - Judge - Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
Winner 1998 - Latham Gaines
Title - 'Rangitoto Fish Story' - Judge - John Eaden
Winner 1997 - Judith Moore-Chisholm
Title - 'Te Oranga Ngakau' - Judge - Shelly Ryde
Winner 1996 - Nicholas Raftopoulos
Title - 'Working Out' - Judge - Nigel Brown
Winner 1995 - Karen Butterworth
Title 'The Dynamism of Revenge' - Judge - Jacob Scott
Winner 1994 - Jenny Dolezel
Title - 'Then and Now' - Judge - Jacqueline Fahey
Winner 1993 - Peter Waddell
Title - 'Mapping the Gulf' - Judge - John Daly-Peoples
Winner 1992 - Kalvin Collins
Title - 'Something for your mind, body and soul' - Judge - Helen Kedgley
Winner 1991 - Joanna Braithwaite
Title - 'A Small NZ Still-life' Judge - John Scott
