The winner of the Golden Textures Contemporary Art Quilt Award will be announced at 2pm on Saturday 17 June 2023 by Central Goldfields Shire Mayor Cr Grace La Vella who will also officially open the exhibition.
Twenty-one art quilts from around Australia have been selected as finalists in this prestigious national award which will be on display at Central Goldfields Art Gallery until 20 August 2023.
The winner of the prestigious Award will be selected by Padraic Fisher, National Wool Museum Director and Helen Kaptein, Art Gallery Coordinator at Central Goldfields Art Gallery. The winner will receive $3,000 and the art quilt will become part of the Central Goldfields Art Gallery permanent collection. The winner of the $500 Highly Commended Award will also be announced on this occasion. Following the official announcement of the Award the judges will lead a tour and talk through the exhibition.
This is the 7th time that the biennial Golden Textures Contemporary Art Quilt Award has been presented by Central Goldfields Art Gallery after the inaugural Award was initiated by Maryborough art quilter Jenny Bacon and the then Gallery Manager, Kay Parkin as a homage to the region’s long connection with textile manufacturing and craft.
The exhibition brings together leading exponents of art quilting from around Australia with artists contributing work from Western Australia through to Tasmania. All of the art quilts have been created in the last three years and none have been publicly exhibited before. Central Goldfields Art Gallery is the sole venue presenting this remarkable exhibition of contemporary Australian art quilts.
Visitors will be surprised by the way artists continue to extend the boundaries of their art form. A wide of range of materials have been employed by artists from recycled materials including protective masks used widely during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic through to hand painted fabrics and cottons.
Whilst there was no theme requested for entry into the Award, interest in landscape, social commentary, beauty and abstraction are explored my multiple artists in different ways.
Robyn Cuthbertson’s entry titled Beneath is a free motion quilted silk that is embedded within 3 wooden, upright sculptures while Jackie Gorring’s entry titled CardyJump utilises found pieces of crochet and repurposed knitted materials in an art quilt that references the memories embodies in the materials once worn.
Artists included in the exhibition are: Anna Brown, Mandy Baker, Sandra Champion, Robyn Cuthbertson, Sue Dennis, Dianne Firth, Jan Frazer, Jackie Gorring, Lynne Hargreaves, Ronda Hazell, Judy Hooworth, Glenyce McGauchie, Jem Olsen, Beth Reid, Trevor Reid, Melanie Sampson, Greg Somerville, Caitlin Stewart, Linda Steele, Tania Tanti, Lisa Walton and Brenda Wiseman.
On the same day, in the Gallery’s Ramp Space, will be the launch of the exhibition of paintings titled Fiona Somerville: Landscape which are inspired by historical buildings around the artist’s home environment in Talbot, Central Victoria.
Fiona Somerville: Landscape is on display from 15 June to 13 August 2023.