Fine Art student Joanna Chew has taken out one of Australia’s most significant awards for landscape painting, the $75,000 Glover Prize.
Ms Chew, a PhD student in the School of Creative Arts and Media, won for her entry titled Tender.
Oil on linen, 127cmx183cm
Image courtesy the artist
The winning work, created with oil on linen, addresses Hobart’s housing shortage, using a news photo of a family’s campsite at the Showgrounds as its central source image.
“Images of tents and caravans were frequently in the news at the beginning of 2018 when my daughter and I moved back to Hobart,” Ms Chew said.
“We lived with my parents for a year, unable to find a rental we could afford.
“It was easy to see why more and more people were forced into solutions like setting up a temporary home at the Showgrounds - an option that will cease within the coming months.
“This painting is a reflection on a broken housing market, and a rental market that prevents many from entering it.”
The winning work, which also references two of colonial painter John Glover’s works, was the first by the artist to be selected as a finalist for the award.
Ms Chew, who is nearing completion of her doctorate, has recently exhibited at the Plimsoll Gallery, School of Creative Arts and Media’s PhD exhibition and at the Moonah Arts Centre.
Judges Suzanne Cotter, Bill Nuttall and Lucienne Rickard, who is also an alumni of the School, said the work brought together contemporary issues with the historical context of the award.
“Joanna Chew's painting Tender stood out in its ambition and layered visual narrative,” the judges said.
“It is a complex painting that addresses contemporary life and themes of home and belonging at the same time as it speaks to a history of painting and the figure of John Glover himself, whose landscapes can be understood as a search for self-recognition in a world that was not his own.”
The Glover Prize attracts more than 500 entries from artists around the world.
More information about studying art at the University of Tasmania is available here.