Mosman Art Prize

Congratulations to Natasha Walsh for receiving the 2018 Mosman Art Prize for her oil on copper painting 'The cicada' (2018). The work enters the celebrated Mosman Art Collection, a historic collection that reflects developments in Australian painting since the Prize’s inception in 1947.

Fresh from receiving the 2018 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and the 2018 Kilgour Prize, the 24-year-old Sydney artist received the $50,000 acquisitive main prize for her intimate self-portrait, depicting Walsh dressed in an old gown removing a veil from her face. Painted with tender gestures and a warm, muted palette, the work explores interplays of vulnerability, visibility and selfhood in human experience. The artist explains:

‘The cicada, an insect long associated with immortality and re-birth, represents here a state of being. Her shell is an old mouldy dress and veil, which has become disappointing, constrictive and confining – a representation of self which we uncomfortably wear and present to the world. In this case the veil conceals not only our imperfect, changing, true self from the world, but also obscures our vision in turn. These roles become confining and yet comforting, however growing pains make them almost impossible not to shed. As such this piece is primarily a work about vulnerability and self-awareness as she removes the veil, shedding her clothing like a cicada does its shell. The painting in turn is also aware of its own alchemical construction, as the figure ‘holds up’ her own illusion of space and form from the flat and reflective copper support with the same hand that pins up a non-existent veil. A painting itself is a shell, which artists leave behind. It imitates the form and mind which once occupied it, however it is not immortal. It only prolongs as older state of being, and once being created will eventually wither and die.’

This year’s judge was artist Cressida Campbell, who selected 105 finalists from 660 entries across Australia. Campbell praised the fine technique and delicate sensibility of Walsh’s painting, noting that the work ‘seems to come from another world’. She continues, ‘it excites me in a similar way to that of the German painters Hans Memling and Lucas Cranach the Elder. Curiously there is also a shadow of Lucien Freud in her work, and he was also German. The acutely observed and delicately painted pale figure emerging from the copper in her ethereal clothing is both startlingly contemporary and yet wistfully mysterious. To paint a figure is always ambitious and Walsh’s The cicada manages to be beautiful yet unsentimental, as well as original.’

The Margaret Olley Commendation Award ($5,000) was awarded to Zoe Young, while Khaled Sabsabi took out the Allan Gamble Award ($3,000) and the Guy Warren Emerging Artists’ Award ($2,000) was presented to Becky Gibson.

EXHIBITION
Mosman Art Prize
26 September – 18 November 2018
Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney