The artist Nell has taken out one of the Australia's most prestigious art prizes, winning The University of Queensland National Artists' Self-Portrait Prize 2013.
Competition judge and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Assistant Director, Curatorial and Digital, Dr Blair French announced Sydney-based artist Nell as the prize winner at a function at the UQ Art Museum on Friday (18 October).
Nell's practice encompasses work in a range of media, including the blackly humorous Happy ending 2006 tombstone outside UQ Art Museum.
"I'm different every day. I think people end up with signature styles, kind of an accent in a way, but my accent is just who I am," Nell said.
Her video in the Self-Portrait Prize, SUMMER 2012, documents her destroying a work she made previously, which is described as an ironic act given her Buddhist practice, which advocates non-violence.
"The fly in this video was made for an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2002," Nell said.
"Fly as high as me was as long as I am tall, and was an odd take on a self-portrait.
"The work was later exhibited at Newcastle Regional Gallery, The Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, and Ipswich Art Gallery, but, after 10 years in storage, it was time for the fly to die.
"Life is fragile. Every living thing will die. And yet life goes on.
"What was once a sculpture is now a video. SUMMER is therefore a double self-portrait in which I am concurrently living and dying," Nell said.
"With a blowfly and cricket bat, SUMMER is distinctly Australian - the mindless swatting of flies, and the bloody mindedness of violence."
Judge Blair French said good portraiture was inextricably bound with a consciousness of time and transience, and could embrace its complexity and hold on our experience.
"In the video work SUMMER, Nell presents us with a symbolic cycle of life, death and rebirth," Dr French said.
"SUMMER has a cathartic quality not just apparent to, but felt by, the viewer. The work is angry and tender all at once," he said.
"Beautifully conceived and produced, the work connects artist and audience in a shared recognition of the fragility of life."
UQ Art Museum Director Dr Campbell Gray said the University's Self-Portrait Prize was a major award, with artists from across Australia contributing work in a variety of media.
"In 2013 artists were asked to consider how the self is constructed and received in contemporary culture," Dr Gray said.
Thirty-eight Australian artists entered the $50,000 invitation-only acquisitive prize, which is held by The University of Queensland every two years.
The University of Queensland National Artists' Self-Portrait Prize 2013: remix. post. connect. will be on display at the UQ Art Museum, St Lucia campus, from 19 October 2013 to 16 February 2014. Admission is free. Further information: www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au
Nell's CV is available here.
People's Choice Award:
Visitors to the exhibition are invited to cast their vote in the People's Choice Award before 16 February.
Public Programs:
Saturday 19 October 11am to 1pm
The winner Nell, Victoria Reichelt , Sancintya Simpson, Tobias Richardson, Eugenia Raskopoulos and James Dodd, in conversation the exhibition curator Samantha Littley, followed by refreshments.
MEDIA IMAGES
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Media contacts:
UQ Art Museum Curator Samantha Littley (Tuesday to Friday) 07 3346 8782, 0416 198 632, s.littley@uq.edu.au; UQ Art Museum Associate Director (Curatorial) Michele Helmrich, 07 3346 8759, 0418 754 983, m.helmrich@uq.edu.au; UQ Art Museum Digital Communications Officer Sebastian Moody (Monday to Thursday) 07 3346 8761, 0419 789 006, s.moody@uq.edu.au.
