Paddington Art Prize 2006 - the little art prize that still might....

According to the 2004 study funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, an average Australian artist earns around $7,000 from their art. This makes visual artists the poorest professionals in the country. In this climate, art prizes with significant cash awards can make a tremendous difference to the life of the winning artist. While all support for the arts is to be applauded, art prizes have a special role and responsibility. The best art prizes stimulate creativity and showcase the most talented and the most innovative work. They can provide a forum for fellow artists to draw inspiration and synergies from each other's work and an opportunity to engage with and educate the public. Prizes are charged with and are challenged with supporting and encouraging the best practitioner in a particular genre or a discipline. They deliver a report on the state of the art in a particular genre or discipline.

With a $20,000 acquisitive prize, Marlene Antico's Paddington Art Prize developed out of her "commitment to supporting contemporary artists" is a well-intentioned and generous initiative. However, if it is to fulfil its potential and mission the organisers need to address a number of key challenges in prize administration and presentation.

Serious art prizes achieve reputation by being consistent and conscientious about their selection criteria and the judging. According to the rules on its website, Paddington Art Prize was to be "awarded to a contemporary painting inspired by the Australian landscape". In Australia, more than any other country, landscape has a paramount significance to personal, cultural and national identities. It is also almost synonymous with authentic Australian indigenous painting tradition, from Russell Drysdale to Sid Nolan, Rover Thomas and Guan Wei, as a medium expressing not just a vision of place but also as means of social commentary. After a long lull, through interaction with new media and emergence of environmental concerns, landscape has re-emerged as a genre that is attracting the younger generation of artists. The new generation of innovative artists is pushing the boundaries of the genre and the medium of painting in helping us understand ourselves and our relationship with the environment in the twenty-first century. This, to me, is the meaning of "contemporary" and "inspired". In this climate, Paddington Art Prize can play a critical and valuable role. Yet little of that is evident, looking at the 2006 Paddington Prize finalists.

Regardless of the merit of individual works, the final selection is largely a selection of simply ordinary "landscape", "sea-scapes" or "street-scapes" in styles ranging from the semi-abstract, realist and photo-realist to the currently fashionable hyper-photorealist paintings. Most of these works have at best a nominal connection with Australia by virtue of having been painted here and being paintings of places in Australia. The deeper intrinsic nexus that the word "inspired" implies and which the uniqueness of Australian landscape deserves is largely lacking. The concept of "contemporary" seems to be largely satisfied by the fact that the entry criteria require the artwork to have been painted in the past twelve months.

John Beard's winning entry, "The Rock & The Sea",is testimony to the failure by the organisers and the judges to treat the theme and the mission of the prize seriously. Apart from the fact that it is not a landscape (it is a sea-scape), there is nothing in this work to identify it as intrinsically Australian or inspired by Australian landscape - either in the colour or expression of light. Technically, it is an oil of mediocre competence, which has a place in the realist academic tradition of the 1950's at the latest and has little to contribute to contemporary painting technically or to art in Australia.

The works that stand out in this thematic oblivion are Katherine Hattam's "The Growth of Plants", Ana Wojak's "Latitude 33.1", Giles Alexander's "Mingas Reconciliation Dreaming" and Tim Allen's "Windy Ridge (Portrait of Noel & Keith)". Hattam's collage is a thoughtful meditation on landscape as inspiration, with an image of trees and sea, desk and books built up through simple plain coloured paper cut-outs in blues and pale browns. (Ironically this lovely work is also proof of the inadequacies of the selection process - after all, this is not a painting and the prize is there to encourage painting specifically!). Ana Wojak's work is a meditation in itself with a shimmering golden and bronze oil paint on steel oblong representation. I wish I knew which part of Latitude 33.1 I was experiencing in her work, but this is not imperative. Giles Alexander's poetic triple image is perhaps the only "contemporary" and relevant work in the prize. The painting is a skilful execution, which extends the oil painting as medium through incorporation of resin, as well as adapting image manipulation opened up by computer technology to looking at the ancient and indigenous essence of Central Australian dessert landscape. Finally, Tim Allen's light and apt semi-abstract expressionism is a pleasure to survey and has a capacity to transport the viewer into the world of impressions and moods that help us understand rather than be preached to. I would also like to commend Rudy Kistler's unfortunately framed, nice little sketch of "Campbell Street". While in my view it should not properly qualify for inclusion, Kistler is a young painter with a nice touch, who has the potential to develop into an interesting painter in due course.

These works however are an exception. Despite the substantial cash award, Paddington Art Prize the names of some of Australia's most ambitious and interesting young artists are missing from the names of finalists (and I suspect the entrants also). This significantly undermines the prize's claim to being "contemporary" or to supporting the best and the most innovative artists today. I attribute this to two basic flaws in organization. The first is that to enter the prize, you don't actually need to be a professional or a practising artist. You are just required to be "an Australia citizen or resident over the age of 18". This is an announcement to any artist concerned with their credibility and reputation that this is a prize open to amateurs, and would be a disincentive to entry.

This is exacerbated by the choice of judges for the prize. Selection of judges signals to the prospective entrants the sort of orientation that the prize will pursue and the types of works that are likely to succeed. With all due respect to their respective accomplishments as a trio, Garry Shead, John Bloomfield and John MacDonald are not the type of trinity that would inspire a young innovative artist with confidence of being understood and appreciated. Only John Bloomfield, as Head of Painting at the National Art School, has expertise in and contact with emerging artists. Garry Shead is a very established painter whose illustrative style has not evolved significantly in over twenty years. While I cannot comment on his taste or ideas about art, as a judge he would not be perceived as someone encouraging challenges to established ideas or practice. John MacDonald has as a critic publicly forged his reputation on pillorying many avant-garde developments in contemporary art across all media and a preference for conservative styles. His inclusion alone would be a red light to any artist even remotely involved in the emerging artist community.

Finally, and it may sound like a small thing, the prize is also let down in the way that it is presented as an exhibition. To be perceived and appreciated properly, each artwork requires sufficient distance in front of it and around. Michael Nagy narrow gallery space is adequate for small canvases, but many of the larger works in the exhibition were literally stifled and crowded, which detracted from the viewing experience. Both the artists and the audiences are short-changed by this.

So what can be said in conclusion? Paddington Art Prize is a good initiative and with a little tweaking it has the potential to advance the cause of Australian art and support some imaginative and innovative work… in the future.

Valerie Kabov is Director of Renaissance aic, an independent art consultancy, with a mission to demystify contemporary art, art collecting and investment.

your opinion: TotallyCritical@artbusiness.com.au

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