24 Oct 2012
Creative New Zealand congratulates Kate Newby, winner of the 2012 Walters Prize, New Zealand’s most prestigious contemporary art award, announced this week.
Newby was awarded $50,000 and will travel to New York to exhibit her large-scale installation, Crawl out your window, at Saatchi & Saatchi's world headquarters.
Creative New Zealand supported Newby’s original presentation of Crawl out your window at GAK Gesellschaft fur Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen, Germany, via an Arts Grant of $20,540 in 2010. This was Newby’s first solo exhibition at a European art institution. Newby also recently completed Creative New Zealand’s residency in New York at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP).
Walters Prize International judge, Chief Curator at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum (MAM) Mami Kataoka, said Newby's work “embraces memories of locations, her personal gestures and subtle actions, which viewers can relate to through small objects embedded into the concrete ramp and the materiality of the suspended fabric.
“More importantly, the use of natural light and the way the work gradually crawls out of the museum space is the most reserved but radical way of transcending the fixed architectural space for contemporary art, liberating us towards wider universal space. The colour yellow emphasizes the cognition for the light and the space and the whole installation offers the physical experience and awareness of both void and silence.”
Newby joins a celebrated list of former Walters Prize winners and contemporary New Zealand artists: Yvonne Todd, et al., Francis Upritchard, Peter Robinson and Dan Arps.
The Walters Prize is awarded for an outstanding work of contemporary New Zealand art produced and exhibited during the past two years.
Held every two years, the Prize aims to make contemporary art a more widely recognised and debated feature of cultural life. Named in honour of the late New Zealand artist Gordon Walters, the Prize was established in 2002 by Founding Benefactors and Principal Donors Erika and Robin Congreve and Dame Jenny Gibbs, with Auckland Art Gallery.
The Walters Prize 2012 exhibition will run until 11 November at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. The other nominated artists for the 2012 prize were Alicia Frankovich, Simon Denny and Sriwhana Spong. It is the first Walters Prize presented at the newly developed Gallery and, for the first time in the Prize's history, entry is free.
Founding Benefactors and Principal Donors: Erika and Robin Congreve; Dame Jenny Gibbs. Major Donor: Dayle Mace
For more information on the Walters Prize, please contact:
Tae Allison, Communications Coordinator
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
P +64 9 307 7706
M +64 27 291 9953
E tae.allison@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
CATEGORIES: Fellowships awards and residencies Latest news and blog
Share this
