A Sunshine Coast artist is treasuring one of the state’s top art accolades.
Coolum Beach’s Kellie O’Dempsey won the Art for Life Award at the Queensland Regional Arts Awards, presented at a gala event at Old Government House in Brisbane.
She claimed the coveted prize, essentially worth $20,000, with Wish You Were Here 1, a mixed media collage and projection that’s 120cm high and 120cm wide.
“(Winning the award) means a great deal,” she said.
“It’s an honour to be associated with the diverse arts practice and practitioners in regional Queensland.”
Ms O’Dempsey said her winning work, “borrows absurdist collage from Dada (an art movement from the early 20th century), steals its introspective title from Pink Floyd’s song of the same name and visualises the experience of being a primary carer.”
“Wish You Were Here 1 reimagines the unseen and unpaid labour of women in repetitive rhythms and monotonous loops.
“Video projection, drawing and collage form multiple figures that attempt to travel, yet go nowhere.
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor including your name and suburb via: news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au.
“This interdisciplinary work transforms the isolation and endurance of contemporary life into a mesmerising carnival of ghostly silhouettes balancing on unstable landforms made of discarded billboard posters.
“In a non-specific location and an unspecified time, this work blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotising and joyful reprieve.”
Ms O’Dempsey was interested in art from a young age, growing up in Victoria.
“I always drew as a child and always want to go to art school…. and here I am,” she said.
“I am interested in collage – piecing elements together that are at the same time familiar and strange.”
She has more projects to focus on.
“I am working on the development of an immersive installation called Here on the Sunshine Coast and will work with other Sunshine Coast artists to make it happen,” she said.
The Queensland Regional Arts Awards invited artists to explore the concept of ‘Reframe’.
The award called for artworks that responded to the changing world, taking into consideration the economic and environmental impacts on the arts sector.
Tinbeerwah’s Julie Polkinghorne won the Mervyn Moriarty Landscape Award with The Swimming Lesson, with watercolour and gouache on paper.
She said the artwork was “a grid where swimmers move in, around and through the water.”
“The dark waters symbolise the fears and challenges of the unknown.
“Stills of a video of my family swimming in an indoor hotel swimming pool provided the imagery.
Buderim’s Jan Strudwick won the Annie Tan Memorial Watercolour Award for her textile piece Sunday Morning – Ukraine.
“The injustice of ‘war’ in the Ukraine has touched people worldwide,” the artist’s statement said.
“This work depicts an elderly Ukrainian woman, who has lost all hope, faith, and belongings, beside young children, playing in the dirt, who can only live in the present, and hope for a future.”
Eumundi’s Julie Field won the Environmental Art Award for her ceramic sculpture on timber stand, Signed Planet Earth.
“In February 2021, Jessica Blackwell’s home was burned to the ground in the WA Wooroloo bushfires,” the artist’s statement said.
“In a miraculous story of survival, Jessica found the remains of this sculpture in the ashes. The artwork was returned to my studio to be reimagined and rebuilt.”
SUBSCRIBE here now for our FREE news feed, direct to your inbox daily!
