Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize 2018

The Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize 2018 features 19 pairings of contemporary Australian and New Zealand artists, selected by Guest Curator and artist Nike Savvas.

The Prize seeks to encourage mentoring relationships between different generations of artists. Savvas, who was born in Sydney but works transnationally between London, Sydney, and Nicosia, says the Art Prize is unique because it empowers artists to exercise a voice as curators and mentors.

“Artists are now relying more on other artists and peer support than in recent years,” Savvas said. “Collective discussions are happening more frequently now in the studio environment and in the digital realm more than in recent years.”

Savvas says the 2018 Art Prize reflects on a range of material, perceptual, conceptual, political, strategic and subjective developmental approaches with which to address painting.

This year’s artists were selected by Savvas because she deemed them as “artists’ artists.”

“At their core lies a resolute philosophy of mindful intent, method and focus on studio outcomes over and above other concerns,” she explained. “These are artists whose creative processes and enduring models for practice have not been compromised over time.”

As an artist herself, Savvas says there are many points of focus within her practice including: aesthetics, memory, politics, the body, spatiality, identity, presence and absence, high art and low art, colour and systems logic. An instalment she created will appear at the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australia Art. It is made up of 3,000 strands of wire, fixed with multiple colourful plastic rectangles.

Until May 12. National Art School, Forbes St & Burton Street, Darlinghurst. Info: www.nas.edu.au

By Addie Morton