Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award Winner Announced

BRISBANE.- Victorian artists Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine were announced as the winners of the Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award in 2010.

Premier and Arts Minister Anna Bligh presented Knowles and Sowerwine with the $75,000 prize at a special event held at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art.

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said Knowles and Sowerwine were among the seven finalists short-listed for this prestigious national art award, the most significant prize for new media in the country.

‘Their winning entry You Were In My Dream 2010 is a playful work that offers a rare combination of interactivity, narrative and nostalgia,’ Mr Ellwood said.

‘The judging panel said it is wonderful to see a new media work that comments so succinctly on 21st century participatory culture by making the screen so tactile. The work of Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine invites the individual into a dreamlike narrative realm. This is a work that will delight audiences of all ages.

‘The judges also highly commended Wade Marynowsky, whose work The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeois Robot 2 2010 is enchanting, poetic and unnerving.’

The National New Media Art Award celebrates the skill and creativity of Australian artists working in challenging and innovative ways with a range of new technologies including digital animation, gaming, robotics, sound sculpture and interactive media.

The biennial acquisitive Award underpins the Queensland Government’s commitment to supporting innovation and creativity in the visual arts and specifically the dynamic art forms of new media.

In addition to the announcing the winner of the 2010 Award, Ms Bligh also presented Queensland artist Claire Robertson with the Premier of Queensland’s New Media Scholarship.

Robertson’s work in video, installation and sound explores the relationship between real and imagined space. She will use the scholarship to participate in residencies, conduct research, and assist with exhibitions in the Netherlands and Germany.

The $25,000 scholarship for an emerging new media artist living and working in Queensland aims to foster and assist in developing aspects of their creative practice in new media.

Judging this year’s Award winner and the scholarship recipient were Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood, Bec Dean, Associate Director of Performance Space, Sydney and Dr Larissa Hjorth, lecturer, Games and Digital Art Programs, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Mr Ellwood said Knowles and Sowerwine’s award-winning work will be on public display in the Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award exhibition at the New Media Gallery, GoMA from August 28 to November 7 and will become an important part of the Gallery’s permanent collection.

The artists short-listed for the 2010 Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award and featured in the exhibition are: Philip Brophy (VIC), Nigel Helyer (NSW), Chris Howlett (QLD), Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine (VIC), Soda_Jerk (NSW) Wade Marynowsky (NSW), and Lynette Wallworth (NSW).

“This Award is an important initiative for artists working in new media, an area strongly supported and recognised by the Queensland Art Gallery, especially since the opening of GoMA, which contains dedicated exhibition spaces for new media works,” Mr Ellwood said.

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