Three art industry professionals have been given the arduous task of picking the winner of Australia’s most prestigious landscape art prize.
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Judges have been announced for the John Glover Prize Acquisitive Art Prize.
The Glover Prize was established in 2004, and is awarded to the work judged the best contemporary painting of a Tasmanian landscape completed in the previous 12 months.
Chief executive and group fairs director of Art Fairs Australia Barry Keldoulis, contemporary artist Joan Ross, and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery director Janet Carding will judge the prize in 2019.
Ms Carding hails from the UK, where she received a degree from Cambridge University in History and Philosophy of Science.
She received her Masters from the University of London in the History of Science and Medicine.
Her career began at London’s Science Museum as a curator in the medical history department.
In 2004, Ms Carding moved to Australia to become assistant director of public programs and operations at the Australian Museum in Sydney.
In 2010, she was appointed director and chief executive of the Royal Ontario Museum, one of Canada’s leading museums.
Ms Carding returned to Australia in 2015 to take up her current role at TMAG.
She is also the vice-chair of the Council of Australasian Museum Directors, president of the Tasmanian branch of Museums Galleries Australia, and a board member of the Festival of Voices.
Ms Carding said she had heard about the Glover Prize during her time working at the Australian Museum.
“I knew it was a contemporary landscape prize that has a strong sense of place in Evandale,” she said.
“It is a tremendous honour [to be a judge], and very pleasing for me to feel included as while I lead the state art gallery, I’m not an art curator by training.”
She said she expected a high standard, a variety of styles, and a broad interpretation of landscape in submitted works.
Ms Carding said she looked forward to getting more involved in the life of of the prize, and getting to know more of the “passionate group who have nurtured it”.
Mr Keldoulis is the chief executive and group fairs director of Art Fairs Australia.
He began his career in New York, where he worked as the private secretary and chief of staff for New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and curator of 21st century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Henry Geldzahler.
Following 15 years in the United States and Europe, Mr Keldoulis returned to Australia to work at Djamu.
He then moved into being senior manager of collections development for Sherman Galleries.
Mr Keldoulis opened his own gallery for young artists in 2003, and was appointed chief executive and director of Sydney Contemporary.
He was also the chairman of the National Association for the Visual Arts, but resigned in 2016 to run as a senate candidate in the world’s first arts party.
Mr Keldoulis said he was delighted to be a judge, and was looking forward to his visit to Tasmania.
Joan Ross is an Australian contemporary artist.
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Ross’ work reconfigures the colonial Australian landscape, drawing attention to the first contact and complex issues surrounding this that are still evident in the country today.
Ross has received many awards, such as the 2018 Mordant Family VR Commission for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).
Her work, called Did you ask the river?, allowed participants to explore an unsettling colonial landscape from, the perspective of an 18th century colonial woman.
Ross’ work can be found in the National Gallery of Australia and Parliament House, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and the City of Sydney.
Ross said she had an interest in John Glover for a long time, with her favourite work being The bath of Diana.
“I appropriate colonial images in my own work and love Glover’s work, but use it as a pivot point to open up and discuss the issues and attitudes around early colonisation and first contact which still pervade today,” she said.
“So, I am always keen to see how other people interpret Glover.
“People criticise his gum trees – I love them.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with them, cutting them out on Photoshop.
“I’m looking forward to see how Glover has influenced people and all the myriad ways that this could be conceived.”
Glover Prize curator Megan Dick said the judges were all industry professionals.
“It’s a wonderful mix,” she said.
“They are key industry people.”
Ms Dick said Mr Keldoulis knows every artists exhibiting in Australia, whereas Ross had used references to some of John Glover’s landscape art in her multimedia work.
“She’s very excited to come down and get involved in the Glover,” she said.
“Janet [Carding] from TMAG is quite significant, and they’ve got quite a few Glovers in their collection.”
Ms Dick said it was a big effort to choose the judges for the prize.
“There’s always a Tasmanian judge, or someone with a Tasmanian background,” she said.
“And, it’s always good to have an artist. So, it is a bit of a mix.
“These three are wonderful, and they’ll be really good. They’ll be complementary.”
Entries for the Glover Prize are now open, and will close at 6pm on January 25.
For the first time, all entries will be submitted online.
Finalists will be announced on online on February 8.
The winner will be announced at the official opening at Falls Park pavilion at Evandale on Friday, March 8.
The People’s Choice and Children’s Choice Awards will be announced on March 17.
The winning artist will receive $50,000 and a bronze maquette of John Glover by Peter Corlett, valued at $5000.
The Glover Prize exhibition will be open to the public at Evandale from March 9 to 17.
- For more information about the prize, or to submit your artwork, visit the Glover Prize website at www.johnglover.com.au.