Brett Whiteley Scholarship
By Erika Gelinard
The 2007 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition, September 15-November 25, 2007; Brett Whiteley Studio, 2 Raper St, Surry Hills; Sat-Sun, 10am-4pm; Thur-Fri booked education groups.
A week after Nathan Hawkes received the 2007 Brett Whiteley Travelling ArtScholarship for his painting Icebergs, the 26 year-old Fine Arts student is"Over the shock, and starting to realise what it means."
The 26-year-old artist from Sydney, who is currently completing his studies at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, was awarded the $25,000 scholarship and a three-month residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris from July to September 2008 to help him further his art education in Europe.
"It's my first opportunity to spend time in Europe, absorb the culture, and seethe arts works in the flesh," he says. "It's a great privilege to have no pressure toproduce and be able to spend time and get inspiration in museums, galleries andthe streets of Paris."
Hawkes is the ninth winner of the annual award, named for one of Australia's best-known contemporary artists whose life and career were tragically cut short by his drug addiction. Beryl Whiteley set up the award in memory of her son, whose artistic career was boosted by his Italian art scholarship when he was 20. She wanted to offer young Australian artists - aged between 20 and 30 - the same opportunity.
Scholarship judges, Art Gallery of NSW director Edmund Capon and senior curator Barry Pearce, as well as painter Aida Tomescu had to select from among 104 candidates and then 21 finalists.
"What won Nathan Hawkes the scholarship was the intelligence behind his work,and his concern with present issues," says Tomescu. "We could see that repeatedvisits to museums in Paris would benefit his work and give him a greater understanding of the language of painting."
Hawkes' winning piece Icebergs is a 12 panel canvas depicting white icebergs and glaciers on the dark blue-green background of the ocean.
Barry Pearce describes it as a "very intense, serious, introspective work, revealing a lot of focus. With time, the quality of this low-key and quiet work rose among other more flamboyant, colourful and larger scale entries."
Hawkes explains that he's always been interested in iceberg forms and wanted to respond to the current issue of global warming through his painting.
"I started it in Sydney in March using archive photographs, then did some drawings and studies on real models when I was in New Zealand, and completed it in June when I came back to Australia."
"I thought it interesting to reduce the size of the icebergs to convey a sense of intimacy. The 12 paintings are meant to give a sense of rhythm and explore variations of the icebergs," says Hawkes.
At the Brett Whiteley studio exhibition of the 21 finalists' works and nineprevious winners, Hawkes' small scale, realistic and low-tone colours focuses the viewer's attention.
Next to Icebergs hangs the Highly Commended work of Elyss McCleary, Two Figures. It was the jury's second favourite and Barry Pearce points to "the very strong gesture" of this painting where thick black lines and colourful spots emerge on a silvery background. Interesting too is the artistic evolution of the nine previous winners of the scholarship. "Ben Quilty won the scholarship in 2002 with a tiny landscape and his recent portrait of Beryl Whiteley is huge. It's the same forMarcus Wills, whose entry for the scholarship [in 2000] was tiny, and now he's won the Archibald Prize in 2006 with a big old engraving," says Pearce.
He comments that around one third of the travelling scholarship winners are what could be described as really successful, which is a "good strike rate". According to Aida Tomescu, however, the factthat all these artists are still working is a success in itself. A good omen for Nathan Hawkes, perhaps.
