A major new art award for emerging artists
From PICA | 10 Mar 2010
PICA and the University of Western Australia are delighted to announce the introduction of the Doctor Harold Schenberg Art Prize, an annual award of $20,000 that will be presented to one talented HATCHED artist each year. The Prize has been set up to allow an outstanding art school graduate to invest in the development of their practice through travel, research or production support.
For the past nineteen years PICA’s HATCHED National Graduate Show has provided a unique opportunity for art school graduates to present their work alongside that of their peers from each state and territory in Australia. HATCHED has been an important and high-profile launching pad for the professional careers of numerous contemporary artists include Leading WA Indigenous artist Julie Dowling; Racquel Ormella who participated in the 16th Sydney Biennale; Shaun Gladwell who represented Australia at the 2005 Yokohama Triennale and the 2009 Venice Biennale; and Sean Cordeiro who was awarded a prestigious Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Art Scholarship and who also recently represented Australia in Venice with Claire Healy.
For HATCHED 2010, PICA gathered an expert selection panel including, for the first time, a leading international arts professional Rebecca Heald, Director, New Contemporaries, UK; together with high-profile Melbourne-based artist Callum Morton; Nicholas Chambers, Curator of International Art, Queensland Art Gallery/Queensland Gallery of Modern Art; and PICA’s Curator Leigh Robb. Together the panel recently considered the work of 86 graduates nominated by 20 art schools from around the country. They selected 39 of these exceptional emerging artists to be part of HATCHED 2010, from 17 April – 13 June 2010.
The very first Doctor Harold Schenberg Art Prize recipient will be chosen by a judging panel consisting of Amy Barrett-Lennard, Rebecca Heald, Callum Morton and Prof Ted Snell and will be announced at the HATCHED opening on Friday 16 April.