This year's Judge is Heather Galbraith of St. Paul St. Gallery.
Full-time Director/Curator of St. Paul St. in Auckland, Heather has returned from twelve years in London, where she undertook an MA in Curating and Arts Administration at Goldsmiths' College and worked for seven years as Exhibitions Organiser at Camden Arts Centre. She completed a BFA (Painting) at Elam School of Fine Arts 1988-91.
After a clear year of managing several high-profile exhibitions at St. Paul St., Heather is moving to Wellington City Gallery to take up the position of Senior Curator from the beginning of August.
Judge's Statement on the selection of 'Nightfall' as the Award winner for 2005
After much difficult consideration, I would like to award the 2005 Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award to Sriwhana Spong for her video work ‘Nightfall’.
This haunting, mesmerising work takes us on a nocturnal journey around a garden, where torchlight stumbles across and illuminates exquisite votive assemblages on the ground and suspended from trees made from fruit, ribbon, incense sticks, golden vegetation, lit cigarettes and garlands of popcorn.
The work, set to a laconic aberration of Cat Steven’s ‘Here Comes My Baby’, elicits flashbacks to cinematic experiences from The Blair Witch Project, to David Lynch’s films ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Twin Peaks’. Her statement makes a clear reference to a cinematic influence or counterpoint – Wes Craven’s thriller/horror ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. She presents us with dialogue between a couple where they are talking about ‘a Balinese way of dreaming’, whereby you experience and ‘own’ a bad dream; you relinquish yourself to it for what productive creative outcome it might be a catalyst for, a poem or a song. This is a beautiful notion, but one that is subject to a Western presumption or expectation of South East Asian exoticism and ritualised domestic life. This video de-stabilised as well as captivates. The camera is unsteady, the illumination fleeting, the journey is unexpected. A dark premise gives way to a heady and beguiling experience.
Overall the standard of work this year was incredibly high and as tempted as I was to split the prize, I wanted to ensure that this generous award gave a single artist a real and significant break - whether that manifests as direct focus on their practice, more time in the studio, a purchase of materials and equipment or paying off some of the debt that most artists live in the constant shadow of.
This is the first time that the award has been given to a video work. Video is an incredibly important medium for contemporary artists (with a history of over thirty years of experimentation). Reluctance to accepting it as a ‘legitimate’ art work has fortunately waned and video work is regularly seen in public galleries, artist-run spaces and is part of public and private collections. The selection of video in this year’s entries was particularly strong.
2004 Judge - Sophie McIntyre
The 2004 awards were judged by Sophie McIntyre, Director of the Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, Wellington.
