2018 CAP Catalogue-v7

2018 INAUGURAL COLLIE ART PRIZE
Making great
things happen.
Not only is the Collie Community Bank ® the
major sponsor of the Collie Art Prize, we do good
things for the whole community.
When you choose to bank with us, great
outcomes are the result.
That’s the power of community banking.
Drop into the Collie branch at 70 Forrest Street
or phone 9734 7411 to find out more.
Trudi Curran
Chairperson
Collie Gallery Group Inc.
The Collie Art Gallery has come a long way since it was opened in 2015. We are a small
gallery run by our tireless Gallery Coordinator Payam Parishanzadeh with the support of a
passionate committee and active volunteers. Don Clark has been a particular driver of the
event, taking his experience from working with the Cossack Art Award some time ago and
now spearheading the organisation of this new venture.
Last year the gallery gained national attention with the launch of the $50,000 Collie Art
Prize, arguably the richest individual acquisitive art prize to be offered in regional Australia.
The prize has been a huge challenge for all the organisers. We have been overwhelmed by
the response with over 500 entries received from artists all over Australia.
We have started from scratch relying on the generosity of many individuals in the Western
Australian art community whose help and support have been invaluable in helping The Collie
Art Prize come to fruition. We thank the Art Gallery of Western Australia for their support
and our prestigious judges Mark Parfitt, Connie Petrillo , Carl Altman, Dr. Stephano Carboni,
Caroline Lunel and Lyn De Ciero who have given their time generously.
We would also like to acknowledge and thank Gillian Peebles for her willing assistance in
helping us to finalise the details of the Prize. She has been invaluable in providing advice
regarding the details of the organisation.
The acquisitive first prize of $50,000 made possible by Collie & Districts Community Bank
Branch of the Bendigo Bank is a shining demonstration of their support for the Collie
Community and our gallery. Our two non-acquisitive $5000 prizes are possible thanks to the
generosity of the good members of the Rotary Club of Collie. Whispering Pines has been
a supporter of the gallery since we first opened and we thank Wanda Bird for generously
providing the $1000 People’s Choice Award.
Finally I would like to thank the over 500 individual entrants who put their hearts and souls
into the work which they entered into the Collie Art Prize. Every one is a winner in their
own special way though only a relative few could be chosen as finalist.
We look forward to a bright future for the Collie Art Prize as we aim to make it a permanent
biennial fixture within the exciting Australian arts scene.
bendigobank.com.au
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited ABN 11 068 049 178 AFSL/Australian Credit Licence 237879.
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ABOUT THE GALLERY
AN EXPLORATION OF IDENTITY
The Collie Art Gallery opened in 2015 as a centre for art and artists.
It is the first fit-for-purpose A-class gallery to be built since the Art Gallery of WA
was opened in 1979.
The gallery showcases a broad range of talent and achievement, as well as
developing talent through a range of programs and events. There is a plenty of
parking and a tour coach stop nearby. There is great disability access throughout the
gallery and surrounds.
Thanks to the sponsors who have provided financial support to the Collie Art Gallery,
making it possible for us to serve the community.
Government of Western Australia
Department of Regional Development
MEMBER FOR
COLLIE-PRESTON
MICK MURRAY MLA
The town of Collie, Western Australia, is undertaking a process of resurgence and
revitalisation as the long-term changes in industry and local business adapt to
contemporary shifts and trends.
Our identity is being re-examined. Australia as a nation is also struggling to define
its identity.
We can relate, therefore, to the theme of Identity and whilst the collection, over
time, will reflect a broader and nationalistic outlook to the theme, the community
of Collie may well find comparisons to their own local identities.
The Collie Art Prize’s theme of Identity invites artists to submit significant artworks
which will explore the age-old issues of identity and belonging that define who we
are and how we relate to the world around us.
Factors that can be explored include upbringing, past experiences, gender, race or
nationality, culture, age or maturity, education, work experience, socio-economic
groups, religion, beliefs and values, the groups we belong to and the people we
admire.
The competition invites entries in a variety of mediums and artistic treatment
of the subject that will ultimately combine in an exhibition which will provoke
discussion and introspection.
The theme is open to the exploration of our various identities and groups we
belong to as they change over time and in different contexts.
The anticipated variety of interpretations for the theme of Identity, reflected in
the creative and personal perceptions of a range of artists, diverse in background,
influence and technique, will write a narrative in art of Australia’s changing Identity.
Each artwork entered is accompanied by an artist’s statement that explains how the
work relates to the subject.
The winning works and statements in the biennial Collie Art Prize will form a
significant collection of works as well as a history of Australia’s changing identity.
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SELECTION AND & JUDGING JUDGING
With well over 500 entries in this inaugural Collie Art Prize, selection of 45 finalists
from such a huge response from artists Australia-wide, was always going to be an
arduous task.
Mark Parfitt
An artist and academic who has regularly
exhibited in group and solo exhibitions,
Mark is a recipient of numerous grants,
residencies and prizes and features in
several institutional and private collections.
Working at Curtin University, Mark is the
course coordinator for the Fine Art major in
the Faculty of Humanities.
He is a member of the National Association
for Visual Artists (NAVA), Artsource (Artists’
Foundation of Western Australia) and a
consultant for the City of South Perth Arts
Advisory Committee.
Connie Petrillo
Connie is a highly qualified Western
Australian artist and curator, holding a
Master of Curatorial Studies in Fine Arts
and a Post Graduate Degree in Fine Arts, a
Bachelor of Arts: Visual Arts and a Diploma
in Art Studies from the Perth School of Art
and Design.
She has more than 20 years’ experience in
registration and curatorial management
of art collections, including the Saint John
of God Health Care Art Collection, which is
committed to Australian contemporary art
and Indigenous art.
Carl Altmann
Carl is a respected art historian lecturer
and artist and has been involved in art
education, design, visual literacy, painting,
drawing and textiles for many years.
He has headed up a gifted art educational
program and has been a television
presenter.
Carl is also a practicing artist with works
in Australia and abroad, including Ireland,
England, Switzerland, USA and Hong Kong.
Our eminent finalist-selection judges, Connie Petrillo, Carl Altmann and Mark Parfitt,
spent a whole day in the theatrette at the Art Gallery of WA poring over all of the
images time and time again before eventually finalising their selections.
Final “on-the-wall” judging by our well-respected final judges, Dr. Stefano Carboni,
Lyn Di Ciero and Caroline Lunel was equally difficult due to the very high standard
of artwork, and was completed over several hours of consideration.
The ultimate winner of the inaugural Collie Art Prize was announced at the Official
Opening event at the Collie Art Gallery on Friday, 2 March.
The People’s Choice Award is chosen by members of the public as they view the
works. The final votes will be tallied and the winner announced following the
conclusion of the exhibition on 15 April 2018.
THE CAP
A play on the acronym of the Collie Art Prize, the unique trophy of an artist’s basque
beret will be presented to each winner of the major art prize.
In time, it is hoped that winning ‘The CAP’ will become as iconic and soughtafter in
the arts community as donning the ‘baggy green’ is to the cricketing world.
Dr Stefano Carboni
Caroline Lunel
Lyn Di Ciero
Stefano was appointed Director of the Art
Gallery of Western Australia in 2008.
He was previously employed at the
Metropolitan Museum in New York, where
he was responsible for a large number of
exhibitions, including the acclaimed Venice
and the Islamic World, 828-1797 (2006-2007).
He is also Adjunct Professor at the
University of Western Australia. He holds a
BA/MA in Arabic and Islamic Art from the
University of Venice and a Ph. D. in Islamic
Art from the University of London.
Caroline Lunel graduated in 1994 with a
diploma in Visual Arts Management and has
since worked for a variety of commercial
galleries and arts organisations in Perth.
She also managed her own art gallery for
five years in Balingup and for the last six
years has been holding the position of
curator and registrar for the art collection
at the Bunbury Regional Art Galleries.
She is a practicing professional artist
and has been associated with numerous
galleries, awards and exhibitions.
Lyn is a visual arts writer, curator, filmmaker.
and owner of the Artist’s Chronicle,
established in 1991, the longest running
independent visual arts magazine in WA.
Her curatorial roles have ranged from
Castaways Sculpture Awards to an annual
auction to raise funds for homeless services.
She has produced short films and
documentaries about artists, including
Makers: The Artists, Their Work, Their Lives,
commissioned by St John of God Health
Care and approved by the Documentary
Australia Foundation.
Photo: Frances Andrijich
4 5

It feels good to
do some good
Turning conversations into actions.
Once a week groups of people get
together, leave their egos at the door
and help others in the wider
community. It’s life changing.
6.30 pm, Thursdays | @collierotary
2018 FINALISTS
The Collie Art Prize is one of regional Australia’s richest single art prizes, and such,
has attracted artworks of the highest calibre from across the nation in its first year.
The following works have been selected as finalists from more than 500 entries.
The Collie Art Gallery would like to thank each and every artist for participating in
the inaugural Collie Art Prize.
We appreciate the time and effort that has gone into producing each and every one
of these outstanding works.
PRIZES
$50,000 acquisitive Collie Art Prize
Sponsored by the Collie Community Bank branch of the Bendigo Bank
Bed & Breakfast
Rotary Prize I and Rotary Prize II (non-acquisitive)
$5000 monetary prize and a complimentary exhibition at the Collie Art Gallery
sponsored by the Rotary Club of Collie
The Collie Art Gallery is to be
congratulated on its
initiative in hosting this
prestigious competition.
It continually provides excellent
exhibitions showcasing a diverse
range of artistic works and Whispering
Pines B&B is proud to be involved.
Nestled in the forest on the picturesque
Collie River,Whispering Pines B&B
provides a tranquil environment only
minutes from the Collie Art Gallery.
$1000 Peoples’ Choice Award (non-acquisitive)
Sponsored by Whispering Pines Bed and Breakfast
www.whisperingpinesbandb.com.au | 1 Rowe Street, Collie | (08) 9734 3883 | wandabird@hotmail.com
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Vivian Falk
Why
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 180 x 120 cm
Price: $45,000
Hershal Balter (97), my son-in-law’s father is a holocaust
survivor. My granddaughter, Tori (aged 10), stands next to him
looking at the tattoo number “B4724”. They both ask, “why”, and
may it never happen again to any race, any country anywhere.
Yet despite everything my family have rebuilt their life in
Australia where we found safety and security and Tori shows
there is hope for the future.
I have used iridescent oils that change the painting as lights
shine onto it. The vibrant background brushstrokes representing
the 6 million screams to come forward to say “don’t forget me!”.
Claire Primrose
Before and After
Medium: Graphite and ink on board
Size: 15 x 30 cm
Price: $860
My work finds inspiration in the direct
linking of immediate locations with
my techniques of making a painting;
transporting a real environment
into the making of an artistic space
evocative of its original and my own
identities.
My practice recreates surfaces, textures
and colours evocative of particular
places; each work attempts to recollect
layers of the place at once of
and from memory melded with specific
gatherings, a culmination of many
different images, spaces, experiences,
and material.
Jamie Preisz
Today, Now, Everyday
(Red Lenses)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 120 x 110 cm
Price: $8,000
This work is a portrait of my friend
and mentor, Australian painter Abdul
Abdullah. This work examines the
lenses we see others through and how
those biases shape the way others look
back at us.
Our perception of identity is created
from the moment we see someone, but
often there is more than meets the eye.
This work explores how perception can
become a feedback loop as if today,
more than ever, it is imperative to seek
people’s true identity.
Riste Andrievski
A portrait of an Industrial
Migrant Landscape
Medium: Soft ground etching
Size: 28.5 x 37.5 cm
Price: $1,200
I am the son of a migrant worker who
settled in the Illawarra in search of a better
life. His quest for a new life brought with
it hardship, a development of a sense of
community and the formation of a new
identity.
My art draws heavily on this migrant
experience, in particular the influence
of industry in shaping the lives of many
that like my father settled here to begin a
different way of life.
My artwork forms this narrative of my life
influenced by the industrial landscape that
was the beacon of hope.
I was raised in Cringila, the steelworks ever present in the background, a
prominent structure which yielded influence over our lives and consequently my
artwork.
The attachment to landscape is part of the identity of every individual and every
culture. The familiar streets, squares, parks and hills of childhood are an integral
part of peoples’ psychological make up and a sense of rootedness in the world.
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Loribelle Spirovski
Study for Ali
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 77 x 61 cm
Price: $2,000
I first met Ali Kadhim when he received the Kirk
Robson Award during the Beyond Tick Boxes
symposium.
The award celebrates extraordinary leadership
from young people working in community arts and
cultural development, and Ali’s work and passion
was immediately inspiring.
His strong sense of identity as someone with
Thai and Iraqi parents, growing up in a country as
diverse as Australia, instantly resonated with my
own experience as a child born of a Filipino mum
and a Serbian dad. Ali’s work as an ambassador for
Australian art continues to inspire my own work as
an Australian artist.
Kate Just
Feminist Fan: Selection
Medium: Hand knitted wool and acrylic yarns
Size: 160 x 198 cm
Price: $26,000
Feminist Fan is an ongoing series of forty
hand-knitted homages of significant feminist
artists around the globe.
This submitted grouping includes knitted
pictures of artists Heather Cassils, Valie
Export, Nan Goldin, Shirin Neshat, Wendy
Redstar, Alma Lopez, Louise Bourgeois, Breyer
P Orridge and Lady Jay, Juliana Huxtable and
Australian artist Julie Rrap.
Through the series, Just investigates and
revives the longstanding relationship
between textiles and feminist art, reveals
the influences of other artists upon her own
identity and considers the value of fandom
to regenerating contemporary feminist
discourse.
Each carefully stitched picture, featuring over 10,000 stitches and 80 hours
work, constitutes a time-intensive act of devotion. Just uses the Instagram
handle @katejustknits and constructs social media posts on Instagram and
Facebook for every work, extending the work’s potential reach, discourse and
influence.
Miriam Innes
Reclaimed: A Journey
Back to Nature
Medium: Charcoal and resin on
aluminium composite
Size: 93 x 124 cm
Price: $6,800
Present-day identity for many can be
defined by their possessions, where
they reside, and the space they own
or occupy. For some people it is their
possessions that define them and many
experiences are lost as people begin to
relate to a larger world not firsthand
but through our use of modern-day
devices.
Matthew Clarke
Selfie
Medium: Acrylic on linen
Size: 122 x 94 cm
Price: $2,900
This painting is titled Selfie and it is about
me and I how feel about dancing, pop music,
Australian life and the fors and against of been
rurally isolated.
This painting also represents my feelings about
my life experiences and how I believe that being
an artist with a disability is no barrier to creating
great art.
We are losing an awareness of some of
the ways we use to identify ourselves
one of which is nature and time, who
simultaneously are the true custodians
of the space we occupy.
Reclaimed: Journey back to Nature is
a reminder of our insignificance, our
modern day arrogance of the land and
past experiences.
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Bridgette McNab
Self Portrait with Cosmos
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 50 x 70 cm
Price: $2,000
This self portrait separates and identifies the two
foundations of my identity as both an artist and florist.
Moreover, it denotes the two foundations of my art
making practice; portraiture and floral still life.
Christine Lawrence
Mongers Lake
Medium: Oil on Belgian linen
Size: 77 x 153 cm
Price: $8,500
Mongers Lake is a prominent feature
of my home, Wanarra station. It is vast,
harsh and beautiful. A land mark in
Western Australia.
I am an Australian realist and landscape
painter. I have always been fascinated
by illusions of space and light,
atmospheric effects, the ever changing,
overarching sky, the textures and
colours of the land.
This subject embodies all of these and
reflects the unique qualities of the
Australian landscape in which I live, that
I identify with. How lucky am I to have
it in my own back yard?
Brian Robinson
By Virtue of This Act I Hereby Take
Possession of This Land
Medium: Linocut
Size: 72.3 x 45 cm
Price: $3,600
This defining moment in Australia’s history and
identity in addressed in this print that illustrates the
discovery of the Islands and the continent by Captain
James Cook.
To add a contemporary element to the work and
reinforce the concept of invasion I have included
imagery of space invaders.
Sally Wilson
Arcadian Home
Medium: Mixed media
Size:130 x 138 cm
Price: $4,500
The physical world with its green and
never-ending horizons was my earliest
friend, waiting with its open armed beauty.
Drawing opens this dialogue between
horizons with the intimacies of the bush
and its quietly-held secrets.
Working in collaboration with chance to
build the blemished surface which informs
all my work requires a repetitive editing
process of layering and erasing; my work on
paper comes with many personas.
I never give up on old works, they gather a
wisdom of their own.
When a surface is ripe for a conversation, I
introduce my own coded mark making; the
wide open spaces; my earliest friend.
I combine graphite, charcoal and watercolour, along with collected bush and
earth, all media that permits manipulation with water allowing this process
to unfold.
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Erika Gofton
Penny Coss
Sincere Lie
Medium: Oil on linen
Of Their Own
Accord
Size: 76 x 56 cm
Price: $4,300
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 120 x 182 cm
More frightening. More intense. More complicated. More
beautiful. More painful. More uncertain.
With motherhood my world became intensified in
innumerable ways.
My anxiety doubled, my fear doubled, my guilt doubled,
my uncertainty doubled, but inevitably I am only really in
control of myself.
The intersubjective relationship between mother and
child is always changing.
My own sense of self is irrevocably altered as my child’s
sense of self develops. My own identity and agency
constantly shifting.
Price: $7,300
For me, walking is a form
of psychogeography and
relationships of exchange
between individuals and
natural environments.
My painting processes
reinterpret the visible and
invisible stains on landscapes
I encounter that often
allude to troubled histories
and landscape systems in
extremis, of disasters both
natural and manmade.
The elements and motifs in
this new work, Of Their Own
Accord relate to phenomena in nature.
Gravity accords with observed things in nature
that float like algal blooms , ocean detritus and
ash clouds.
True and deep identification with the landscape
that I walk is a strong part of my own
identity.
Norah Murphy
Untitled
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 60 x 60 cm
Price: $550
This is an abstract response to a
days sketching in the Murchison,
an exploration of the late day
colour playing on rock and sand
of the age-old land.
The vitality and colour of this
region has a deep impact.
Inspiration stems from being in
this spiritual place.
Catherine Gartner
‘Banjo’ - The Old Sheep Shearer
Medium: Watercolour
Size: 99 x 75 cm
Price: $2,500
Our population is ageing and as it does the elderly are
revered less and less by society. Their intrinsic work
ethic, experience, knowledge, insight, traditions, and
deep sense of commitment can be undervalued. As
they approach their twilight years, their mental and
physical strength fades and their very identity begins
to diminish. Banjo is a local born and bred sheep
shearer and in my painting of him, I hope to capture
his unique identity.
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Monique Tippett
Nature of Being
Medium: Jarrah, Blackbutt and Karri timber veneers,
ink, silver leaf, mirror and lacquers on board
Size: 200 x 200 cm
Price: $12,500
A reflection of the light within me. This piece draws
on my sense of place and its significance in the
definition of my identity. The work can be viewed as
a forest landscape; a wall of canopy on a misty day.
It is also a close up, bringing you into the folds of the
forest to study the intricate and beautiful minutiae
of nature.
Tree bark, its cracks and imperfections, the releasing
of tension stored in its growth. I see myself in this
work. I see my cracks and imperfections. I see my
point of release and I see the gaps in the trees. Long
shafts of light, drawing me on, to where my path
leads. Long shafts of light, drawing me on, to where
my path leads.
Jordan Richardson
Self Portrait as Fool
Medium: Oil on aluminium composite panel
Size: 50 x 40 cm
Price: $3,500
I painted this self portrait while looking at the
historical role of the Fool.
The true role of the Court Fool is to remind the King
of his own mortality. The Fool does this under the
veil of madness which allows him to be the lone
truthsayer in the Royal Court.
I drew parallels with this character and my own
identity as an artist, as truthsayer as well as madman
as I have battled with my own mental health
throughout my life.
There is a reason the Fool is often the most powerful
card in the deck.
Lori Pensini
Mary (Wartum-No tu man)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 150 x 150 cm
Price: $8,800
A retrospective exploration of my 3rd great aunt
Mary Wartum (No tu man), Yandergin noongar
and her marriage to English settler/grazier Elijah
Quartermaine.
Carl Gopalkrishnan
Bombshells 1 to 3
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 30 x 75 cm
Price: $6,000
In this body of work in progress,
titled ‘In media res’ I travel along four
narrative arcs that explore how a young
person ‘per-forms’ their identity. I call
it an ‘uncomfortable triptych’, as their
story together refused to be separated.
I used the phrase ‘In media res’
specifically as the author S.Batty Page
used it in her under-appreciated 1995
book American Monroe The Making of
a Body Politic, which used the actress
Marilyn Monroe as a “representative
character” of our time to explore the
“vocabulary of memory” and how
culture plays a vital role in how we see
ourselves and our shared history.
In 3 small paintings Bombshells 1-3,
I look at the vulnerability of youth
through social media while under the
pressures of extreme trends - not
unlike the heightened reality of haute
couture.
The story is told she was to have been married to a
tribal husband, but fled from her camp to avoid this.
Elijah offered her protection, they fell in love and
later married.
At a time when aboriginal peoples were classed
as ‘livestock’, to legally acknowledge a marriage
to an indigenous woman is, to say in the least,
monumental.
Mary is portrayed at the very top, an aboriginal gold
sun sets behind her, arms and hands splayed open
with the suggestion of embracement. Subsequent
generations of her offspring are wrapped in the
folds of her skirt and vine that grows from her fingers, creating a river
of life, of knowledge and things ‘of women’ not written but passed
down through the soul and heart.
16 17

Benjamin Mitchell
A Girl Reading
Medium: Oil on plywood
Size: 120 x 80 cm
Price: $2,549
My pictures are explorations of my immediate surroundings
particularly the scenes where my subjects are absorbed in
their own world or unaware they are being drawn, riding the
train, using their phone or at the beach sunbathing etc.
How people behave at social gatherings or alone in public
speaks to the theme of Identity.
Wanda Comrie
Collective
Propagation
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 91.5 x 152 cm
Price: $4,950
A dear female artist friend passed these
cuttings onto me. They’re now growing
roots, soon to flourish and eventually
become strong enough to survive on their
own.
Such is our friendship - women supporting
women, sharing plant cuttings, wisdom and
stories of life with humility and conviviality.
These succulents symbolise the growth in
female solidarity and alliance, which fuels,
facilitates and enriches my sense of self, and
in turn informs a large part of my identity.
Knowing there is a strong network of
support at my back gives me the guts to
know myself in all facets of my life and to
be truly authentic when making art.
I have been using torn and pulped train tickets to draw onto
and explore the material qualities of the paper which I make
from scratch.
After exhibiting these drawings in 2015 I decided to change
the scale and materials and work on plywood with oil paint
and enamel.
James Tinsley
Paradise Lost
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 85 x 85 cm
Price: $2,700
This is part of a body of work that explores the
ideas of identity and place and the anxieties
created for both the outsider and the citizen.
The image places refugee camp in a forest
which performs the role of sheltering the
camp but it also acts as boundary between the
citizens and the refugees.
Within the camp a lone figure in a HAZMAT
suit explores the camp. The HAZMAT suit figure
is meant to symbolise how society guards and
protects itself from foreigners.
The suited figure also aims to show to the
audience how an outsider (refugee) would
find the country and its society that they are
going to - as being unfamiliar, foreign and
threatening at first.
Anne McCaughey
Battling On
Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Size: 100 x 150 cm
Price: $7,500
I have fused my subject, Lesley Reece,
with the collaged background of a 1961
copy of ‘The last Battle’ by C.S. Lewis
to reinforce the idea that her identity
has been forged closely with what she
passionately cares about.
Lesley has been recognised as a
Member of the Order of Australia
for her significant service to children
through improving literacy skills and
promoting Australia’s authors and
illustrators. This cause identifies her life.
Through layering of mark over mark,
accretion and striation and scoring of
surface, I wanted the physicality of the
artwork to emphasise the exigencies of
dedication.
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Tanya Jaceglav
Underground
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 122 x 152 cm
Price: $3,000
Understanding what forms our Identity
is an ongoing investigation of my
practice.
Anna-Louise
Richardson
Little Big Rock
Medium: Charcoal on cement
fibreboard
Size: 120 x 200 cm
Price: $3,000
Dalgaranga crater, a tourist attraction
in the Gascoyne, is Australia’s smallest
meteorite impact crater situated on
Dalgaranga station, once occupied by
Richardson’s family. The crater was
recognised in 1921 and is believed
to have been created by a 20 tonne
mesosiderite, although only 1.1kg
of samples were found. Exploring
narratives of grandeur and the natural
monument, ‘Little big rock’ pays
homage to the insignificant remains of
a considerable impact. Recreating the
original meteorite, whose constituents
have been reduced to dust and
scattered by the forces of erosion, the
work becomes a metaphor for the
dissolution of generational history in
rural Australia.
The fragments of our experience and to
quote Arundhati Roy “how we are never
in a single moment at any time it is all
fractured never one feeling a thousand
feelings at once” fascinate me.
The death of my Slav father in an
underground mining accident when
I was two, the Collie coal mining
history of my partner’s grandfather
and father, my interest in the process
of painting, in absence and presence,
these thoughts, feelings and ways of
knowing have all informed my painting.
Nigel Hewitt
Arcadia
Medium: Wood ash, polymer oils, wax,
wood veneer on nine canvas panels
Size: 153 x 183 cm
Price: $26,000
Through a juxtaposition of John Glover’s
mid-nineteenth century painting The
Ruins of the Paestum at Salerno against
a Tasmanian landscape depicted in ash
collected from local destructive bushfires,
Arcadia explores the problematic legacy of
colonial attitudes towards landscape.
Nigel Hewitt’s practice closely explores
the interrelationship between historical,
political, cultural and environmental
conditions, and how these are played out
in his home State of Tasmania in particular.
This work reflects Hewitt’s interest in
historical and contemporary white identity
in the context of ancient Australia and the
direct effects this has on our natural world.
Donna Heart
It’s So Beautiful from
35,000 Feet
Medium: Acrylic, pencil and fine glass beads
on canvas
Size: 102 x 102 cm
Price: $2,200
Whilst flying over the south western
Australian landscape at 35,000 feet I was
taken aback by the simultaneous beauty and
heartbreaking reality of the visible dryland
salinity below. From this new perspective
where I was taken out of the landscape and
hovered above it, I could appreciate the fine
balance between humans and the natural
environment in a new way.
I wondered how many non-indigenous
Australians truly saw their identity as
stewards of this great land. And if indeed we
did then how could we step up, be more vocal
and active in its protection as environmentally
conscious caretakers.
20 21

Kirsten Sivyer
Alun Rhys Jones
First Came the Sun
The Wrestlers
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 90 x 90 cm
Price: $4,400
My painting, depicting a farm fire,
explores the connection we perceive
between ourselves and the sometimes
harsh and threatening natural
environment.
We may identify with nature as an
inseparable part of ourselves with
appreciation for the cycles of fire
and flood, or see the land simply as a
resource with risks to be managed.
How we identify with nature is
inevitably shaped by our social and
cultural experiences.
Medium: Charcoal on Stonehenge
paper
Size: 122 x 100 cm
Price: $6,800
Masculinity has had a makeover,
visually, aesthetically and
psychologically, from Bondi bros to
hipster bromances, the Aussie bloke
has been transformed into a self aware,
groomed, buffed, image conscious,
product-consuming, marketing dream.
Media portrays the ideal image of
men to be muscular and by implication
strong, tough and stoic. However the
pressure to obtain and maintain the
body beautiful portrayed by these
images has led to an increase in body
dissatisfaction for men and young
adults.
Almost 18 percent of men are very
concerned about their own physique
and feel pressured to gain weight
and become more toned. They were
significantly more likely to become
depressed and take part in behaviors
like alcohol, steroid and drug use.
Suicide is now the leading cause of
death for Australian men aged 15-44
and male suicide rates are three times
that of women. It appears the pressure
to look, act, and harden up may be
making some men crack.
Tony Belobrajdic
By the Table
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 61 x 51 cm
Price: $3,500
I have loosely based this painting on a black and
white photo of my partner’s auntie as a young
woman.
Being a migrant, facing new life in a new country
I believe she would have asked herself many
questions over time.
Although painted figuratively, I was trying to
give the painting that slightly abstract quality.
Suzanna Castleden
5.31 am On This Side of
the World
Medium: Gesso on BFK rag paper
Size: 80 x 107 cm
Price: $3,800
In this two-sided work, the front image
is of the world tilted to show the first
light of day falling on my hometown of
Fremantle; the image on the reverse of
the paper is of sunset on the other side
of the world.
The work is made using a process
akin to a mezzotint, where the image
emerges through a process of removing
a dark surface to reveal a lighter layer
beneath. It’s a work that uses light and
darkness as a way of thinking about
how we come to orientate and sense
our place in the world.
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23

Elisa Markes-Young
The Original Place 1/2018
Medium: Wool, cotton, hand-made
lace, beads, sequins, acrylic on Belgian
linen
Size: 110 x 110 cm
Price: $2,600
“Fathers and fatherlands. The sun. A
basic sense of orientation, of knowing
where the sun is.” (1) After multiple
migrations, my identity is defined by
the feeling of being caught between
two worlds - here and there, now and
then. I don’t know where the sun is
anymore.
Trying to navigate between Polish
origins, German influences and
Australian surroundings, I feel that
my memories - jumbled, flawed and
incomplete - are the closest I have to a
home. They are a way of self-defining,
of saying, “I was me.” (1) Jane Alison.
Andy Quilty
Casuarina
Medium: Graphite, charcoal, ink and aerosol on Arches paper
Size: 181 x 130 cm
Price: $4,000
In recent years I have formed a working relationship with a fellow
artist currently serving a life sentence at Casuarina Prison - the
results of which we are exhibiting together in May.
Taking the ‘outside’ perspective my work examines how an
absurd, dehumanised discourse and entrenched lack of empathy
in the Australian societal identity, propagates a deeply flawed
system.
The economy of A2 drawings contains my response within the
modest art-making tools available to my incarcerated peer,
allowing a sense of immediacy in recording first-person narratives
related to me by friends including prison officers, police, lawyers,
mental health workers and (unidentified) prisoners.
The artificial environs of the prison providing the scene for these
happenings, beautiful native bush land cruelly sitting directly
outside, and blue sky a consistent presence surrounding all.
Sarah Smith
Cotton Candy
Medium: Charcoal, Watercolour,
gouache, acrylic, ink, wax pencil and
coloured pencil
Size: 110.6 x 124.4 cm
Price: $5,900
The sweet, alluring prettiness of cotton
candy for the masses with an aura of
self-image obsession.
A carefully constructed identity fixated
on looking good and counting likes.
Fading reality and authentic expression
by the intoxication of social media,
possessions and money.
The emptiness of expectation, the
pressure of perfection, the confusion
of fact and fantasy and the end of
conversation.
Individual identity hushed in a haze of
fluffy stuff.
Alastair Taylor
Synchronymity
(96 Alistair Taylors)
Medium: Acrylic on aluminium and
board
Size: 79 x 120 cm
Price: $5,200
In the course of a not uncommon
discombobulation with the dreaded
Facebook, I managed to lose my page
and, in the ensuing search, discovered
an alarming number of Alastair Taylors
all over the world.
It was a sobering moment, to discover
that my name had been shared around
so profligately, and made me realise
what a small speck on the planet I am;
so far from unique, even among blokes
with my exact name and even spelling.
I decided to paint all the ones I could
find, and I’m sure there are many more.
24 25

Olga Cironis
Calling
Medium: Plastic packing tape, text and
wood
Size: 120 x 120 cm
Price: $9,000
Each morning I walk along the WA
coastline and swim in the ocean to feel
immersed in the moment.
Always awed by the ever-changing
beauty and wrath of this world, I catch
myself floating away from doubt.
Nicole Slatter
Birthday
Medium: Oil on board
Size: 82 x 102 cm
Price: $3,000
Birthday is a painting that extends research
into the idea that representations of place
can hold the feeling of time and one’s
personal experience.
This work explores the confluence of the
Australian landscape (with which I know,
feel and identify) and the remnants of a
personal event.
The streamers are temporarily part of the
landscape and connect a familiar Australian
place to a moment of human experience.
I attempt to expand a feeling of empathy
between the form and movement of the
trees and the streamers through a painterly
gesture.
Daevid Anderson
Sheila
Medium: Oil on board
Size: 30 x 30 cm
Price: $10,000
This work is a portrait of my
grandmother, Sheila. Not unusually, I
think my grandmother is an amazing
woman.
This portrait, however, doesn’t try to
capture any narrative element, but
rather reflects my view of her, during a
visit late one afternoon.
It focuses on the way the light falls
across her aged face, and attempts to
capture the twinkle in her eye, and wry
smile that she is well-known for.
Patricia Kelly
A Fragile Journey
Medium: Oil on canvas, with
floating white timber panel.
Finished with Gamvar Glass.
Size: 65 x 127 cm
Price: $2,800
The essence of this work is directly held in my
hands. Palmistry suggests that we are born
with a life plan in the lines of our left hand, and
how we utilise this plan lays in our right.
We start life with intrinsic elements that relate
to our ancestry, but the journey we undertake
through life inflicts both physical and mental
changes on our identity; both negative and
positive. An identity can hold great strength
while simultaneously be fragile.
We set goals, symbolically represented
by the perfect white square. The
black ‘scars’ through the work are
representative of the negative that
changes and threatens us.
For some, it is a constant fight, others it
is always filled with uncertainty. I hold
dearly to where I came from but it does
not define me or who I am today or
who I will be in the future.
26
27

Daniella Panizza
Beyond the Farm Gates
of My Heritage
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 122 x 152 cm
Price: $20,000
The tired gates of ‘Blue Gum Farm’
Noggerup, Western Australia.
My grandparents, Jim and Rosie Scolari,
cleared and worked this land after their
arrival from Italy in the 1930s. Although
now long passed, their presence remains
heard through the rustling of the trees.
‘The Farm’ remains stuck in time, as we,
the subsequent generations are not
farmers and it’s been too hard to let go.
Do we decide our identity or do we
awaken to it? Through the gateways of
change we are guided by the spirit of
our past and can carry it in our hearts
into the future.
Wade Taylor
Palmeston
Medium: Oil on board
Size: 60 x 55 cm
Price: $1,900
Our surroundings shape us. Place and memory are
inextricably bound together and dictate the stories and
narratives we tell about ourselves and where we came
from.
Identity is informed by the spaces that bore us, and is
deepened by its contours and makeup. Why do we feel we
belong in some places and not others?
Palmerston explores this notion through the lens of the
contemporary Australian suburban landscape, a kind
of disconcerting emptiness and quiet in the pedestrian
corners of a familiar and repetitive locale. The suburbs
formed both myself and my practice.
The relationship between place and identity can be seen
through the evocative physicality of a figureless landscape.
By way of inversion, or like the filling of a void, a sense of
self is revealed through the container of space.
Mel Dare
The Stories I Tell
Myself
Medium: Acrylic paint and ink
on Belgium linen
Size: 198 x 157 cm
Price: $6,750
While visiting my mother’s
homeland Czech Republic in
2013, I developed a further
interest in the notion of self.
How an individual is
constructed, threaded together
by divergent strands of culture
as well as the moments of time
and place we exist.
Elmari Steyn
Umbra: S33° 38.347’/E115° 01.567’
Medium: Copper plate line etch and Stage Bite aquatint
Size: 70 x 50 cm
Price: $450
Umbra explores the interaction that we have with nature, through trees,
especially unusual, individual and expressive trees, even misshapen trees.
Each of these trees expresses their individual narrative, character, size,
shape and function - their identity!
Whether in wild untouched places or in urban settings (such as the carpark
herein), trees retain their individuality, their true form and identity; their
unique relationship to an area, with its climate, wind and setting.
Umbra is an individual living tree, reproduced as a copper-plate line and
aquatint etch, one of several in a series of southwestern Australian trees.
Gentle strands or crude
stitches forming the patterns
of conditioning imposed
by external and internal
influences.
Weaving filters to see through, blankets to comfort ourselves, maps to
navigate by and nets to save us.
Our need to survive and equally our desire for comfort. This was the starting
point of my current body of work.
28 29

Cathy van Ee
Hold Onto Your Dreams
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 62 x 77.5 cm
Price: $2,800
After World War II ended, my parents
migrated to Australia drawn on the
promise of a better life, taking with
them few belongings.
Amongst them were these clogs, first
worn by my father in Amsterdam,
then myself as a child in rural Victoria,
showing worn soles from playing in
untouched bushland.
My treasured clogs sit on my hearth to
remind me of my origins, and the risks
taken by my parents for a better life
and a new identity. As the Kangaroo
Paw migrated from WA to all parts of
this country, so too as migrants we are
all Australians.
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31

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101 STEERE STREET, COLLIE 6225 | PH: 9734 2351 | collie@my.betta.com.au
For all your Electrical and Furniture needs
Collie Visitor Centre — (08) 9734 2051 — info@collierivervalley.org.au
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32 33

The Collie Art Prize would not be possible without the help of an enthusiastic team of
individuals and organisations that have exceeded all expectations in their support.
Geoff Blackford, Hazel Boardman, Don Clark, Dianne Clark, Lyn Di Ciero, Cynthia Dix, Allison
Fergie, Paula Hands, Deb Mangini, Mick Murray and his team, Payam Parishanzadeh, Gillian
Peebles, Rod Searle, Sarah Stanley and the team from Staying in Touch.
The CAP would not be within our reach without our sponsors, Collie Community Branch of the
Bendigo Bank, the Rotary Club of Collie and Wanda Bird of Whispering Pines B&B.
134 Throssell Street, Colli
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