Third Guirguis new art prize to be awarded

The Ballarat surgeon and philanthropist says he stumbled into a Leonard Joel auction with a colleague while he was an intern – and left with picture by the artist John Olsen.

“I was amazed that  you could go to an auction house and see all these works of art and get really close to them. You could go up and lift it and carry it… previously, all these Streetons and other famous Australian artists I thought you could only see in galleries,” said Mr Guirguis.

Now the chair of the Art Gallery of Ballarat foundation and member of the gallery’s board is in the midst of providing one of Ballarat’s most generous prizes for emerging artists working in intermedia.

The third instalment of the Guirguis New Art Prize (GNAP) is about to be exhibited at the Post Office Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ballarat from March 25 until May 14.

The acquisitive prize is worth $20,000 and is awarded every two years for work by Australian contemporary artists in sculpture, installation, video, photography, textiles and painting.

It rewards art that explores ideas relating to art history, gender, cultural identity, and other social and political issues.

Mr Guirguis says the prize is also aimed at drawing the Art Academy (Ballarat) at Federation University and the Art Gallery of Ballarat closer together.

“I wanted to support the arts in the region, and we talked about having fellowships or sending people overseas’” Mr Guirguis said.

“But an art prize was what we finally decided on, and a fairly contemporary art prize. Hence the GNAP.”

This year there are a total of 14 finalists in the GNAP including Abdul Abdullah, Joel Arthur, Erin Coates and DAMP.

“The work of these artists wouldn’t normally be seen in Ballarat and are usually only exhibited in major cities, so it’s fantastic that the prize is able to allow that to happen,” says Post Office Gallery curator Shelly Hinton.

The Guirguis New Art Prize winner will be announced on Friday March 24.