Tom Carment, winner of the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize

Artist Tom Carment has won this year’s NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize, an acquisitive art prize of $20 000, awarded for the best ‘plein air’ painting of NSW subject. 

Carment’s landscape painting Afternoon Shadow, William Street was awarded by judge Ms Anne Ryan, Curator of Australian Prints at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Selected out of 41 finalists, Carment’s refined and impressive style has been a product of 30 years development, since first staring out in the 1970s.

“Plein air painting is just about all I do,” he says. “About thirty years ago I started to realise that the pictures I did outside had more life to the ones I worked up from drawings in the studio. I felt they were fresher, more honest. Since those times I haven’t really had a studio where I paint. My studio is in a series of bags and backpacks.”

Taking his inspiration from his familiar surroundings of Darlinghurst and Kings Cross, he discovered his subject one afternoon.  Tom says; “The subject for ‘Afternoon Shadow, William Street’ was spotted on my route back home from the city; a wall never meant to be exposed, revealed by a recent demolition. In late summer afternoon light, half covered in shadow, it fascinated me.”

Afternoon Shadow, William Street is one of the largest plein air paintings that he has executed, with the busy urban landscape of the William Street posing many inspirations and challenges.  Over a period of six sessions, Carment noted the moving shadows, interruptions of long-staying delivery trucks and inquisitive passers-by stopping to chat about his practice.

However it is this experience that draws Carment to practice of en plein air, as he comments, “One aspect of painting and drawing from life I like is that while the artist remains still, the subject changes, and things continue to happen all around.”

Carment’s prize winning work will become apart of the permanent collection of the NSW Parliament, alongside previous winners Guy Maestri, John Bokor, Isabel Gomez, Rodney Pople, Euan Macleod and Noel McKenna.

The 2014 NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize is on now, and will run through until Friday 1 August. Entry is free, and doors are open Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 5:00pm.

Alongside the winning artwork will be the three finalists from a series of 10 plein air painting workshops conducted across NSW with year 9 students that was sponsored by Telstra.

2014 NSW Parliament Plein Air Prize
Until Friday 1 August
www.pleinair.com.au

Image: ‘Afternoon Shadow¸William Street’, oil on linen, 100 x 87cm
Image courtesy the artist and NSW Parliament Plein Air Prize