Category Archives: Art Prize

Korea-Australia Arts Foundation – KAAF Art Prize – Commended

Art Prize

Delighted to have received a commendation Award at the Kaaf Art Prize!

Thank you to Judges John Mcdonald – Art Critic and Columnist SMH, Oliver Smith – Senior Lecturer SCA and Professor Suh Yongsun – Faculty of Fine Arts, SNU

A Word from the Judge (published in 2018 KAAF Art Prize Catalogue)

Convergence

“What’s most appealing about this painting is its raggedness, it’s brazen lack of finish. It can take an artist a long time to work up the courage to leave forms and surfaces in such a raw state. The temptation is to fill in gaps and define contours to give a more authoritative result. Ann Arora, by contrast, has produced a seemingly casual image of a group of men in the street in which details are less important than the energy of the brushstrokes, the interplay of flat planes and pattern, the thin and dense application of paint, and a fearless use of colour. It’s a work one returns to again and again, largely because of its unpredictability.”

John McDonald

Art Critic and Columnist SMH

http://www.kaaf.org.au

Venue: Korean Cultural Centre
Dates: 30th Nov 2018 – 25th Jan 2019

Chippendale New World Art Prize 2015

Art Prize, Uncategorized

My painting Observer has been selected as a finalist in the 2015 Chippendale New World Art Prize! www.chippendalecreative.com/

Artist statement

Phenomena – experienced through the mind of the Observer – intuited, glimpsed, felt, known or imagined. The use of the Ruckenfigur or back-figure is a nod to the Romantics and the Kantian notion of the Sublime. It is also a means to observe the body within space that is unaware of being watched. Within our selfie-obsessed visual culture, images of the unself-conscious body become rarefied and increasingly interesting both visually and ideologically. According to Kant phenomena refers to appearances or objects, which are perceived, observed or apprehended through experience, reliant upon our sensory intuition of things and offering glimpses into collective truths. The visual tension between form and formlessness, detail and incompleteness interest me as they align with our attempts to make sense of the metaphysical world.

Ann Arora 2015

Observer oil on canvas 36x36cm 2015

 

Portia Geach 2013

Art Prize, Portrait
Peter Fay
Peter Fay

Portia Geach Memorial Award 2013

I have been selected as a finalist in the 2013 Portia Geach Memorial Award with my portrait of Peter Fay. The exhibition is on at the National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery from the 4th October to the 17th November.  Thank you to the lovely Peter Fay for sitting for me!

Please come and have a look!

Artist Statement

I first met curator and collector Peter Fay by chance through a mutual friend. He generously agreed to sit for a portrait for me and a firm friendship has ensued.

During the two to three sittings for the painting our conversations ranged from favourite Australian and American painters to outsider and children’s art, literature and the profession of teaching – interests we share. While Peter left teaching many years ago there is still an inherent quality of the guide/mentor/provocateur in Peter, which gets you thinking outside the box, generating discussion and debate.

 A shared love of the American painter Milton Avery inspired the composition of the painting after an Avery portrait of fellow artist Marsden Hartley, which somehow reminded me of Peter. There is a “what you see is what you get” honesty and openness about Peter that I hope the painting conveys.

Ann Arora 2013