Bird on the street: National Art Prize Winner Announced
Hervey Bay Regional Gallery and Fraser Coast Regional Council is proud to announce the winner of the first Girra: Fraser Coast National Art Prize.
The $25,000 acquisitive prize has been awarded to Western Australian artist Anna Louise Richardson for her work I asked for a sign (wedge-tailed eagle), a 2-metre tall charcoal drawing on cement fibreboard.
The work was selected by judges Dr. Fiona Foley (artist and Associate Professor, University of Queensland), Peta Rake (Director of university of Queensland Art Museum) and Ashleigh Whatling (Director of Hervey Bay Regional Gallery) from a shortlist of eighteen artists from across the country.
Anna Louise Richardson is an Australian artist living and working on Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodja in the Peel Region of Western Australia.
Richardson's practice centres around drawing, rendering realistic scenes that speak strongly to her experience of rural life as a member of a multigenerational farming family.
I asked for a sign (wedge-tailed eagle) is part of a body of work developed after the death of the artist’s mother. Richardson encountered birds of prey during this time, sensing they were visitation by her late mother.
Created around the birth of the artist’s last child, this drawing is a visual manifestation of moments when contiguous worlds overlap: the threshold between life and death, the human and animal, the familiar and unknown.
Richardson’s intricately detailed and impressively scaled work represents a significant early acquisition for the newly focused Hervey Bay Regional Gallery Collection.
This Girra exhibition tells a compelling story about our relationship to the environment through the diverse perspectives and aesthetic approaches of 18 exciting artists from across the country.
In its inaugural year, the prize received 274 entries from across Australia responding to the theme of people, place and the environment.
The Girra: Fraser Coast National Art Prize finalists’ exhibition features the work of eighteen artists and is on display Hervey Bay Regional Gallery until 12 November 2023.
