2024 Winners
Winner Stanthorpe Art Prize 2024 - The Bogan's Ballet by Melanie Sinclair
The coveted Stanthorpe Art Prize 2024 Award, valued at $16,000, was awarded to Melanie Sinclair for her photograph, The Bogan's Ballet. This outstanding photograph was deemed the most exceptional entry of the competition, capturing the judges' admiration with its remarkable vision and execution.
“Bogan’s Ballet reflects the Australian landscape in an incongruous marriage of natural beauty and ‘hooliganism’. Using colloquial Australian language, the artist evokes an image of a burnout or a ‘doughy’ reflected as an ancient and classical form of dance. In the vein of Australian photographers such as Rennie Ellis and Max Dupain the artist captures an element of Australian identity showing us beauty, darkness, and humour.”
“Choosing an overall winner is never easy – but particularly so when presented with such a strong field of entries across such diverse mediums and subjects. We kept coming back to this work. It is at once complex and simple. It speaks to regional communities – although not exclusively. It also talks about the identities of others, yet somehow it achieves this in their absence, which adds a weightiness to the work. It’s an image that is beautiful to look at even if its subject rallies against this. And it’s a work that provides a wealth of formal and conceptual substance which keeps you looking.”
Category Prizes: Each of the six category winners received $4,000 in recognition of their excellence in specific artistic disciplines:
The 2D - Painting / Drawing category prize went to Thomas Thorby-Lister for his work Untitled (Bladensburg National Park).
The 2D - Print Media award was presented to Melanie Sinclair for The Bogan's Ballet, which also won the overall Stanthorpe Art Prize Award.
The 2D - Mixed / Crafted award was won by Virginia Keft for “Queering the colony in the Colony: I don't give a Flying Fox which team you bat for.”
The 3D - Modelled / Carved prize was awarded to Sue Wright for Modern Relic.
The 3D - Cast accolade went to Lorraine Dean for Veil.
The 3D - Composite / Assemblage category was won by Lori Pensini for Farm Yard.
The Patrons Local Artist Award was presented to Leon Ward for Tiny Worlds.
The Ted & Daph Reeves Memorial Prize for Young Artists, honouring young talent, was awarded to Charlie Jones for The Future.
The IAS Fine Art Logistics Changeover Team Award, chosen by the Changeover Team, was given to James Stickland for Graced by Family.
The Public Choice Award was determined by visitors to the exhibition and announced on Monday 18th November. Congratulations to Scott McDougall for winning this award with his work Winter's last light, Tenterfield NSW.
Congratulations to the winners and all of our finalists!
2021 Winners
Memoryscape (Garden with sunflowers and pencil pines), Leah Bullen
Armidale-based artist Leah Bullen has been announced as the winner of the 2021 Stanthorpe Art Prize. After a long delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Stanthorpe Art Prize winners were announced at a gala opening on Friday 19 February, and were opened by Philip Bacon AM.
Congratulations to Leah Bullen for winning first prize, with her watercolour, Memoryscape (Garden with sunflowers and pencil pines). Ms Bullen was awarded the $22,000 Best in Show as well as the $3,500 2D Painting/Drawing category.
Leah Bullen completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) and a Doctor of Philosophy Creative Arts from the School of Art & Design at the Australian National University. In 2016, she was the winner of the Trustees’ Watercolour Prize as part of the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Leah says, “I started this work of a garden before the hardest part of the drought. For me gardens and gardening have always been a place and an activity centred around family, the beauty of nature and tranquillity. Memoryscape has gained a new currency over this challenging summer. It is a landscape of personal memories, daydreams and nostalgia — a landscape of ecological grief.”
The judges, Simon Wright (QAGOMA) and Rachael Parsons (New England Regional Art Museum) agreed that the decision to award Leah first prize was the easiest choice in the awards. The judges highlighted Leah’s accomplishment in a tricky and unforgiving medium. Mr Wright said “I can smell that scene. It’s like comfort food.” Ms Parsons commented on the outstanding quality of the beauty, texture, depth and colour in the work, balanced with the conceptual and technical vigour.
See all 2021 finalists
See all works in the 2021 exhibition.
Please note that the print catalogue was designed to show 2D works from one side, and 3D works from the other side. Digitally, this means that the 2D works are shown first, and 3D works are shown from page 58.
2018 WINNERS
Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Stanthorpe Art Prize!
$25,000 2018 Stanthorpe Art Prize Award – First Prize – “Clyde & Mary” by Jason McNamara
$5000 Significant 2D Award – “Casuarina Landscape with Coffee Van” by Sandra Guy
$5000 Significant 3D Award – “Artefacts” by Joanna Bone
$2000 Emerging Artist Award – “Earth Soldier” by Sian Medill
$1000 Volunteers Choice Award – “The Swimmer” by Mela Cooke
$1000 Local Artist Award – “Shibui #1” by Fay Roselt
$500 Youth Award – “Pretty in Pink” by Tess Dwyer
$500 Public Choice Award - “Brother” by Jess Le Clerc
Judges Commendation “Banksia Bouquet” by Peta Boyce
Judges Commendation “Why I’ll Never Take Acid Again”by Joy Ivill
2016 WINNERS
