A Tasmanian artist has won Australia’s most prestigious portraiture art prize for women artists, the 2017 Portia Geach Memorial Award.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Artist Amanda Davies took out the prize with her Portrait of Pat Bassington, who is a leading contemporary artist also from Tasmania.
She graduated with recognition in this year’s awards program from the University of Tasmania’s School of Creative Arts.
Her piece was created in to honour Bassington’s life and artistic achievements by recognising a reoccuring motif in her work.
“I had a wedding dress in the studio that I had bought a few years ago from an op shop, and asked her to wear it inside-out for me,” Davies said
“The wedding dress is a reoccurring motif in Pat’s work from the late 90s, and a reference to surrealism and feminism, so it was a symbolic encounter.”
It was a great honour to receive with so many fantastic female artists exhibited in the award, Davies said.
School head of discipline John Vella congratulated Davies on winning the Portia Geach Memorial Award.
“We are very proud of Amanda’s achievements, especially as she is a graduate of (the School of Creative Arts’) honours program, and wish her ongoing success,” Vella said.
Valued at $30,000, the art prize recognises the top entry by a female artist in Australia and required a submitted piece to be a portrait painted from the life of a significant person in art, literature or science.