HAYDEN FOWLER, OWEN LEONG AND EMILY SANDRUSSI SHORTLISTED FOR THE BLAKE PRIZE

Image: Owen Leong, Cutting (diptych), 2014, archival pigment on cotton paper, 100 x 143cm, edition of 2

Congratulations to Hayden Fowler, Owen Leong and Emily Sandrussi - all of whom are finalists in this year's distinguished Blake Prize and were selected from over 1000 entries.

Now in its 63rd year, the prestigious award is handed out annually by The Blake Society with the aim of challenging artists to investigate ideas and issues surrounding spiritual thought and religion in contemporary art and literature. Open to all faiths, artistic styles and media, the prize seeks to unearth the multitude of ways in which notions of faith can be explored in contemporary conversations.

Hayden Fowler's interdisciplinary practice reflects on the consequences of the increasing separation between humanity and nature at a time when it is becoming more and more difficult to define what is natural. He has been shortlisted for his mesmerising video artwork, New World Order. 

Owen Leong has been shortlisted for his artwork, Cutting (diptych), which depicts the artist's mother and father holding an orchid cactus entombed in wax. Also known as 'Queen of the Night', this plant can take up to a year to produce a flower that only blooms for a single night. Planted by his parents in the home where he was born, it has been nurtured and regrown from cutting to cutting and used by the artist's grandmother to make a healing soup.

In her suite of artworks, Domino Theory, Emily Sandrussi has been inspired by old photographs taken by her stepfather during the Vietnam War, which she has scanned and deliberately altered via digital corruption. Domino Theory is a poignant contemporary 'momento mori' which is both deeply personal as well as universal.

Image: Emily Sandrussi, Untitled, 2013, from the series Domino Theory, pigment inkjet print, 100 x 100cm 

  

Bloodmilk and Domino Theory can be seen at Artereal Gallery until 20 December.

The Blake Finalist Exhibition is presented at UNSW Galleries from Friday 12 December - Saturday 31 January 2015.

HAYDEN FOWLER / MCA NEW ACQUISITIONS IN CONTEXT

Hayden Fowler_New World Order_video stills_HD video, colour, sound_15:17min duration

On 12 December 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) will be opening New Acquisitions in Context 2013.

"Celebrating the diversity of art making in Australia, New Acquisitions in Context 2013 features a range of media from painting and photography through to installation and the moving image and draws together multiple themes and ideas through a collection of very different artworks." (MCA)

Hayden Fowler's video New World Order was recently acquired by the MCA and will be on show alongside works from over 28 emerging and established artists from around the country.

Fowler’s work hones in on the suppressed yearnings of contemporary culture to explore feelings of loss and alienation from nature that pervade the human psyche. Stylistically, the hyper-real video is part documentary format, part artifice. Birdlife, rare and exotic live chickens and colourful canaries, are choreographed within a fabulous diorama; a strange, grey-scale, petrified forest setting that is an elaborate set created by the artist in his studio. The strutting, perching, scratching, flapping, and feeding of these outlandish and domesticated feathered creatures is intercut with close-ups and panoramas of this fictive and idealised natural space.

New Acquisitions in Context will run until 23 February 2014.
MCA: 140 George St, The Rocks NSW

To see more of Hayden's works from this series, click here.