Detail of Hiromi Tango, Lizard Tail (Breaking Cycle) #1; Artbank collection, purchased 2016.
‘Whether its madness, masochism or sheer willfulness, the point of focus I have to create art is the most solid knowing I cling to,’ says Lismore artist Karla Dickens.
Dickens is one of six artists being considered for the prestigious $30,000 NSW Visual Artist Fellowship, an initiative of Arts NSW that also includes an acquisitive Artbank commission up to $20,000 and a live-in residency at one of two regional NSW galleries – the Murray Art Museum Albury or the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Arts Centre in the Northern Rivers.
The Fellowship specifically targets mid-career to established artists in an attempt to fill the gaps in the career pathway. While many prizes target new talent, it aims to increase visibility and fuel sustainability at a point when it’s perhaps most needed for a professional artist.
The shortlisted artists are Khadim Ali (Blacktown), Linda Dement (Balmain), Karla Dickens (Lismore), Bianca Hester (Canterbury), Salote Tawale (Newtown) and Hiromi Tango (Tweed Shire).
The winner will be announced at an exhibition of the finalist’s work, opening 1 December at Artbank’s Sydney headquarters, after a floor talk with the shortlisted artists at 5pm, which is open to the public.
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Director of Artbank Tony Stephens recognised that artists often experience an ebb and flow across their career path, and that investment in an artist’s development should not stop once they have “emerged”.
‘The Fellowship is important because artists need support at all stages of their career,’ he said.
Artbank has one of the largest collections of Australian art in the world, so a commission that results in being included in such a significant collection would offer an artist a significant boost, at any career juncture.
‘I have found by hanging in, being ready for the long haul and working hard, the opportunities have come, and as long as I can keep making art with a few pats on the back and a few sales, my fire burns,’ said Dickens, a Wiradjuri artist working across film, photography, sculpture, painting and writing.
Her work was recently included in Songlines on the Opera House sails for Vivid 2016 and next year she will be feature in the National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia.
‘The rewards come as I believe more and more that creating art is an essential part of life, trusting and honouring this has seen doors open with like-minded persons that believe the same to be true.’
It is is a feeling shared by Sydney Based artist and academic Bianca Hester. “If you’re at the mid-career stage, then you’re pretty much fully invested in the practice and you’re in it for the long haul.
‘I’ve come to a point where I’m also starting to more fully understand the values or ethos that drives the work and the implications of these. I feel that the mid-career moment brings a certain kind of perspective, gained from concrete experience, to realise what’s important. I’m looking forward to developing the practice in a deeper way from that position, said Hester.
Hiromi Tango echoes the desire to keep growing, ‘Once you have experienced some success, it could be easier to stick to what is working. But in order to grow you need to embrace uncertainty, and keep taking risks. It sounds easy but the need to push beyond the comfort zone is something I am always mindful of.
‘The risk of artistic identity is more defined in that artists themselves get too comfortable with what we are used to creating. Precision is important but it is essential to not to let habits become ingrained, and to remain flexible and explore’.
Japanese-born Tango hopes to work with Tweed Regional Gallery on an arts/health project, combining her passions around brain-related research and arts engagement in her home region.
The much-needed mid-career catalyst
Working at the forefront of electronic arts, interactive and robotic kinetic installations, Sydney-based digital artist Linda Dement feels privileged just to be a mid-career artist.
‘Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror I realised, “Oh wow I am old – I made it to middle age.” I honestly believed I would die young, yet here I am with sagging skin, holes in my memory, a solid knowledge that all is uncertain, a functional liver and an unwavering compulsion to make art.
‘I feel like I have gotten away with something. Slipped through a gate that wasn’t meant to be open. That is, the big reward of being a mid-career artist is that I am one.’
Dement believes that the greatest challenges at this career moment are to keep pushing the boundaries and to continue to experiment.
Fijian-born Salote Tawale works across performance and uses her body in her practice. Working with photo-media and sculptural installations, Tawale draws on her experience of race, class, ethnicity and gender growing up in suburban Australia.
‘All of my work starts out as a performance of myself or a self-portrait,’ she said. ‘Like me, these materials embody not only cultural continuities but also my place as part of the Pacific diaspora.’
Likewise shortlisted artist Khadim Ali considers ethnicity and his own heritage in his work. Of Afghani cultural background, Ali has been inspired by miniature painting, adding his own stories and inflections.
While he is a Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW – a great acknowledgement as an established artist – to be shortlisted for this Fellowship offers deep commitment to his future work as an artist.
Arts NSW Executive Director Michael Brealey says the Fellowship is part of the vision of Create in NSW.
‘Artbank’s exhibition of the shortlisted means the expertise of these artists and our appreciation of their work is now seen more widely in Sydney and regional NSW,’ he said.
Brealey described the group of six shortlisted artists as ‘impressively talented’ and ‘diverse in their backgrounds’. The exhibition offers a pulse on establishing professional practice now – the standards expected, the boundaries pushed, and the hunger that drives making.
Witness how these six artists navigate those conversations and challenges.
2017 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship Exhibition
222 Young Street, Waterloo
1 December 2016 – 24 February 2017
Exhibition launch, artist talk and award announcement: 1 December from 5-8pm
