Three MFA Whitecliffe graduates, Nell Nutsford, Jacquie Haselden and Elsa Lye, were among the 50 finalists selected from the hundreds of entries for the New Zealand Painting and Printing Making Award.
On the opening night of the Hamilton Gardens Summer Festival, Warwick Brown announced his choice for the prestigious New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award along with six merit awards.
Entries in the Award, which is open to any New Zealand person, close each year on October 8. With a first prize of $20,000 plus purchase of the winning work by principal sponsors, the Philip Vela Family Trust, this lucrative Award attracts artists from throughout the country. Beginning with 2000 winner Gavin Hipkins, the event has served to springboard the careers of many now well-known artists, and several thousand visitors view the exhibition of finalists’ work in the Pavilion, Hamilton Gardens, each February during the Hamilton Gardens Summer Festival.
The winner of the $20,000 award, 2011, was John McLean for his oil painting on canvas: Dinghy and waka with unstable foreshore structures.
Nell Nutsford
Gravity Object (White)
Digital photograph on perspex
1200mm x 1200mm
Jacquie Haselden
Unravel, 2011
Acrylic, silver pen and resin on board
1000mm diameter
Elsa Lye
Drawn to the Edge
Ink, graphite and shellac on reconstructed butter paper
1200cm x 1500cm