The Galeries Emerging Artist Exhibition

For the second year running, The Galeries hosted the Emerging Art Prize in partnership with Art Month Sydney. The Emerging Art Prize celebrates up-and-coming Sydney-based artists that have been practising for five years or less. The selected artists are awarded the opportunity to exhibit in The Galeries Emerging Artist Exhibition, as well as be in the running for $4,000 prize money and a year-long personal mentorship with Art Month Creative Director Barry Keldoulis. The public will also have the opportunity to vote for their favourite artist via The Galeries website, with a People's Choice prize of $1,000. 

After surveying the current emerging art scene as well as consulting local gallery directors and art schools for recommendations, Art Month Creative Director Barry Keldoulis was able to nominate a handful of artists for the Emerging Artist Exhibition, whom he believed to be representative of the diverse cross-section of artists within the emerging arts sector. 

The five lucky Sydney-based artists chosen to exhibit their work in The Galeries Emerging Artist Exhibition, as well as be in the running for the award prize money and mentorship are:

ZOE WONG

Zoe Wong is a multi-media artist whose practice explores the representation of race and culture within media and its impact on identity. Through appropriation, Zoe critiques cultural stereotypes and addresses the lack of diverse representation.

Growing up half Chinese, half Australian, Zoe’s works often explores identity complexities specific to mixed race people and seeks to create an alternate representation for bi/multi-racial people through contemporary art. Having felt a distinct lack of discourse surrounding these issues, Zoe is interested in provoking dialogue in which individual narratives may be expressed.

Zoe has recently graduated from a Bachelor (Honours) at UTS in photography.

www.zoewong.com.au

ZAC HAROLD

Zac Harold graduated from the National Arts School in 2013, majoring in ceramics. His current practice involves a range of mediums including drawing, collage, photography, and installation.

His main concern is in the interpretation and recreation of spaces, for instance observing the space between things, specifically the way mundane objects within the urban landscape can relate or not relate to each other. The resulting works are a visual analysis of his sight; investigating the ways we can encounter and inhabit such spaces. In turn, the works take form through a rigorous contemplation of composition, colour and balance.

His recent works have taken form as large-scale soft fabric patchworks and smaller paper collages, which impose upon the viewer a sense of spatiality, a series of fragmented forms or aerial perspectives meeting on the one plane.

Zac has taken part in numerous group shows at artist-run initiatives, and has recently completed a one month art residency in Wedding, Berlin. He is currently a Director at Stacks Projects.

www.zacharyharold.com

ROBIN HEARFIELD

Robin Hearfield is an interdisciplinary artist working with drawing, photography, video, sculpture, and installation. He is interested in intersections of real world environments, the virtual space and the 2D picture plane - mining Greek classical notions of the ideal and contemporary, competitive capitalism.

JOANNE MAKAS

Joanne Makas is an emerging contemporary artist whose primary medium is paints, but not as you would expect. The focus of her practice is searching for the zone of indeterminacy between painting and object and the pursuit of paint and painting as AN object.

This oscillation between object and painting places her work in the field of ‘expanded painting’ allowing her a freedom to explore and question what painting is or isn't, can or can't be. Makas does this through an ongoing dialogue in the fundamental aspects of painting, particularly colour, materiality and perception.

She uses paintings formal qualities, like gesture and format to engage with a discourse that explores the tension between a two-dimensional surface and a three-dimensional form. Her intention is to draw attention to the materiality of canvas and paint in order to disrupt thinking and create conflict in our understanding of what we see.

Joanne graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art, Painting (Honours) from the National Art School in 2013 and is currently undertaking her MFA at NAS.

www.joannemakas.com

HANA HOOGEDEURE

Hana Hoogedeure is a multi-disciplinary artist with a primary focus in installation, incorporating soft sculpture, performance, and video.

Her work is concerned with the sculptural qualities of theatrical props and toys and the function they play within a setting or on a stage. Hoogedeure’s practice is narrative-based; the final works resolving themselves as documented performance or as installation settings for action to take place.

Hoogedeure was Stonevilla studios’ six-month studio residency recipient in July 2015. She has exhibited in groups shows both locally and interstate including Feltspace, SCA galleries, Alaska projects, Knulp, Verge gallery, Articulate Project Space, Archive_ and Casula Powerhouse Art Centre.

She is one part of the collaborative performance duo RadRace with Luke O’Donnell, and is an affiliated artist with Interlude Gallery, Glebe.

www.joannemakas.com

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