Four Students receive NZ Art Show Emerging Artist Awards

Four Fine Art Students receive NZ Art Show Emerging Artist Awards

Four art students who are exhibiting at this year’s NZ Art Show later this week have each won a $2,500 Emerging Art Award. They are: Daniel Roberts from the Dunedin School of Art at Otago Polytechnic; Pater Hickley from the College of Creative Arts, Massey University; and Helen Clegg and Veronika Djoulai from the Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland.

The NZ Art Show’s Emerging Artist Awards recognise the work of exceptional emerging artists and New Zealand’s art schools and were made possible through the generosity of a New Zealand Art Show patron and trustee, Wellingtonian Richard Nelson.

The NZ Art Show’s Selection Panel who selected the four award winners had earlier chosen nine finalists and were very impressed by the artworks presented. Forty students were nominated for the four Emerging Artist Awards by their tutors from 12 of New Zealand’s leading tertiary art schools.

The Convenor of the Selection Panel, Wellington artist Lynne Sandri said, “The work submitted was fresh, different and experimental. While each of the emerging artists showed confidence in their technique and creativity, the four winners all pushed the boundaries of their disciplines. The winners and nine finalist’s submitted works will be exhibited in a dedicated gallery at the Show and we look forward to seeing how well the Show’s visitors appreciate the more challenging work of these emerging artists.”

The four artists selected as this year’s Emerging Artist Award winners represent a range of media:
Daniel Roberts is a sculptor who uses a variety of quirky mediums such as recycled chairs, 100s and 1000s and skeletons. The selection panel felt Daniel and cleverly captured a lifelike attitude in his experimental sculptures which they described as being ‘very covetable’.
Helen Clegg is currently in her final year of undergraduate BFA study at Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design and will graduate in November with a major in Photography. She has a piqued interest in embodied space where human experience and consciousness takes on material and spatial form. She uses herself as a model, capturing moments when body and landscape combine in shared experience through the photographic moment.
Patrick Hickley is an artist/musician based in Wellington and is currently studying Photographic Design at Massey University. The selectors thought Patrick's presentation of geometric shapes were simple, elegant and timeless. The content was also able to be extended beyond static photographs and into dynamic moving video work.
Veronika Djoulai is currently in her 3rd year of a BFA degree at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design having immigrated to New Zealand from Eastern Russia in 2000. She has extensively researched lesser known Russian drawings and paintings of the early 20th century and translated them into a contemporary context, innovatively reworking the images in watercolour directly onto photographic paper.

The NZ Art Show takes place in the TSB Bank Arena on Wellington’s waterfront over three days. The Show is open to the public by general admission from Friday, 26 July to Sunday, 28 July 2013.

The art displayed is constantly changing so there is always something different to see. Tickets cost $10 each, concessions $7, with children 12 years and under free.

NZ Art Show executive director Carla Russell says, “The Emerging Artist Awards were established to help young artists establish their careers and gain recognition for their work. The quality of the art submitted for consideration this year was outstanding and will add an additional dimension to this year’s Show.

ENDS

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