June

Andrew Browne

Congratulations to Andrew Browne on winning the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize for 2018 for his work, The awakening. A biennial acquisitive award for contemporary painting with a cash prize of $30,000, the judging panel comprised Justin Paton (Head Curator of International Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales), Rebecca Coates (Director, Shepparton Art Museum) and Lisa Sullivan (Senior Curator, Geelong Gallery). 

The judges commented: “This was a work that drew us in immediately and kept drawing us back. The key to its power is the board at the centre with its staring black ‘eyes’, backlit by a haunting nocturnal glow. With its flicks, smudges and overruns of colour, the plywood board suggests a painted surface hidden to the viewer, sharpening our curiosity about what has been made – or is being made – on the other side. The object could be read in multiple ways: as a redundant protest placard tied against a tree, or an abstracted crucifix-like form with looming attendants on each side. Gothic and film-noir-esque, the painting’s moodiness and ambiguity are absolutely of our times. This may be an image of the fate of painting, or a broader evocation of a world where troubling events transpire on the edge of our awareness.” Read more at Art Guide.

Andrew Browne will present a floor talk at Geelong Art Gallery on Saturday 23 June at 11.30am. 

Image: Photographer Hails & Shine. Courtesy Geelong Art Gallery.