City of Hobart Art Prize 2015

CeramicsThe City of Hobart Art Prize 2015 exhibition is now on show at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), this year showcasing the media of drawing and ceramics.

In its 27th year the Prize attracted more than 250 entries across both categories, with 56 contemporary artworks from around Australia selected for the finalists' exhibition.

Winners of the $15,000 acquisitive prizes in each category were announced at the exhibition launch at TMAG on Thursday 17 September.

Kirsten Coelho of Adelaide won the ceramics category with her work What we thought we needed, while young Hobart artist Cameron McRae won the drawing category with his work Donk, Trip, Smack.

Jia Jia Ji Chen and Helen Fuller were highly commended in the ceramics category and Matt Coyle and Matthew Vaughan were highly commended in drawing.

The winners were selected by an esteemed panel of judges comprising Dr Patsy Hely, Emeritus Fellow at the Australian National University's School of Art and notable ceramic artist, TMAG Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, Peter Hughes, and Julie Robinson, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Visitors will be able to vote in the non-acquisitive People's Choice Prize, which awards a cash prize of $1000 to the artist with the most popular work in the exhibition, and one lucky voter will receive a $100 gift voucher courtesy of the City of Hobart for taking part.

TMAG's own visitor services officers will also be voting on their favourite work in the exhibition, and will announce the winner of the TMAG Gallery Staff Art Prize – inspired by the Archibald Packers Prize – in November.

The City of Hobart Art Prize 2015 exhibition is on show at TMAG until Sunday 29 November 2015. For more information and to view the exhibition catalogue, visit the Prize website.

Image details:

(top) Kirsten Coelho, What we thought we needed (2015), porcelain, matt white glaze, banded iron oxide and saturated iron glaze, 22 x 60 x 25. Image: Jonathan Wherrett.

(below) Cameron McRae, Donk,Trip, Smack (2015), pencil on paper, 50 x 180. Image: Jonathan Wherrett.

Drawing