A figure of frustration offset by a wine stain has won Ballarat artist Kim Anderson both the judge’s and people’s choice awards at Ballarat Arts Foundation’s Eureka Art Award.
Her self portrait Fighting Inertia shows Anderson with her dress pulled part way over her head, covering her eyes and riding up the back of her thighs.
The lead pencil drawing took 200 hours to complete and finished with a flourish, Anderson said.
“I wanted to take some risks with my work and loosen up a bit because I always do this really tightly controlled stuff and since the piece I have started to,” Anderson, who went to the French post graduate art school DRAWinternational after completing the work, said.
“It took me a few months late last year to work on this figure and then the final splash (of wine) was at the start of this year and then I went overseas for three months after that.
“I was feeling like I needed to push myself in a different direction … feeling like what do I do, do I just go for it and jump off the cliff or stay stuck forever?”
Anderson received the people’s choice award on Christmas Eve, a month after her work was chosen for the top prize by Ararat Regional Art Gallery director Anthony Camm.
The Ballarat artist won by a single vote over Deanne Gilson’s triptych Decolonising White.
Decolonising White aims to restore traditional culture and knowledge and celebrate “Aboriginal ways of being and doing”.
The three canvases depict the Wadawurrung Cultural Tree of Knowledge, the silver banksia and the yarn daisy.
Jessica Black
Ballarat journalist.
Ballarat journalist.
