FIFTEEN short-listed finalists have been announced for this year's Guirguis New Art Prize.
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One winner will walk away with $20,000 and the pride of winning one of Australia's most important contemporary arts prizes.
The work of the 15 artists will be on display at Federation University Australia's Post Office Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ballarat from April 11.
Post Office Galley curator Shelley Hinton said GNAP15 will showcase an eclectic field of emerging and mid-career artists' work with a myriad of styles, ideas and themes that will inadvertently expand and challenge views about art.
"The Guirguis New Art Prize allows artists to create a new or present an existing work across a range of media and new technologies," she said.
"In allowing that type of freedom, artists are able to push the boundaries, expressing their ideas in new and complex formats."
She said themes such as fantasy and the paranormal, Indigenous issues and belief systems, history and nostalgia have been explored in this year's works.
"The finalists have highly developed ideas and modes of presentation and as a consequence, their work is what you would expect to see in any important exhibition on contemporary art in Australia," Ms Hinton said.
"The exhibition will be extremely diverse this year with many works presenting a shift in the way we view works of art.
"While many video works combine with installations, there will be animation and drawing contrasted with traditional paintings by an artist from Melville Island. It is a great opportunity to see amazing work all in the one visit in regional Victoria."
The 2015 finalists are Kate Mitchell and Mark Shorter from New South Wales, Northern Territory's Conrad Tipungwuti and Chris Barry, Queensland's Ross Manning and Jemima Wyman, Julie Gough from Tasmania, Victoria's Chris Bond, Louise Hubbard, Susan Jacobs, Jess Johnson, Dylan Martorell and Dominic Redfern, Western Australia's Teelah George and Pilar Mata Dupont.
The $20,000 prize has been donated by local surgeon and passionate art collector Mark Guirguis and will be awarded at the gala opening at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. "
This year's judges are senior curator, contemporary art, National Gallery of Victoria Max Delany and curator, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Hannah Mathews.
Launched in 2013, the prize will be presented every second year until 2021.
THE INFO
WHAT: Guirguis New Art Prize 2015
WHEN: April 11- May 31
WHERE: Federation University Australia's Post Office Gallery and Art Gallery of Ballarat
