Pattillo art scholar named

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Salt of the Earth –ordinary person of good character, by Karin Strachan.

Media release

Pattillo art scholar named

The inaugural pattillo art scholarship has been awarded to Karin Strachan, a Fine Arts student at Whanganui UCOL’s Quay School of the Arts.

The winner was named at a function at the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui last night (Wednesday 7 November). Judges were Greg Anderson, senior curator at the Sarjeant; Louis Le Vaillant, Curator, Applied Arts at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and Paula Newton, from the Mary Newton Gallery in Wellington.

Karin Strachan says her piece, Salt of the Earth-ordinary person of good character, alludes to the common milk bottle, a New Zealand icon. She says chaos suggests disorder and she has taken relatively formless materials and combined them into an ordered and “ordinary” form. She used cement, rock salt, sand and water. She says her sculpture is part of a body of work which explores ideas and connections between home, language and “New Zealandness”.

Pattillo is a Wellington based consultancy business, working in New Zealand and Australia. The company specialises in organisational transformation.

The brief for students was “sculpting chaos” and as chaos is a naturally occurring form, the materials used for the students’creations had to be found in nature.

Pattillo director Anne Pattillo says the company’s clients inspired this scholarship.

“They deal with the demanding reality of life and the complexity and chaos that comes from balancing the competing interests and actions that shape their environment. Every day they work to make a little more progress and make things a better for the people they serve.”

Anne Pattillo says she has been delighted with the entries for the first year of the scholarship.

“At pattillo, we love art and its power to communicate complex and powerful ideas. The students have shown exciting innovation in their entries.”

The pattillo scholarship, worth $7,500 each year, is being offered for developing artists from Whanganui UCOL’s Quay School of the Arts. Pattillo has given a commitment to continue it for the next ten years.

She says the school has an increasing reputation both nationally and internationally and is situated in a community that has a fine tradition of supporting artists and art.

Each scholarship winner will also receive a commemoratory medal sculpted by nationally recognised jewellery artist Frances Stachl.

Myra McIntyre, programme leader of Whanganui UCOL’s Quay School of the Arts says students have been motivated to enter their work for judging as it is a significant scholarship.

“The prestige of gaining this award in the early stages of an artists’ career gives them a tremendous boost.”

She says the scholarship is a wonderful initiative.

“The public support and recognition shown by pattillo is a reflection of the reputation of the Quay School and its achievements. It endorses the quality of work being produced by Quay School of the Arts students and recognition being given to the value of art education in the business world.”

Ends

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