7- 25 October

2009 Mistletoe Acquisitive Sculpture Award

Minding Bodies

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2009 Mistletoe Acquisitive Sculpture Award

Leasha Craig   John Heaney   Tomoko Iwahashi   Daniel Lovegrove 
Michael Keith Richards   Dellwynne Sanders   Diane Scorse 
Sharon Taylor  Mary Tyquin  

The award…

In 2002  Ken and Gwen Sloan, the principals of Mistletoe Wines, Pokolbin, approached the University of Newcastle wishing to support emerging artists who were currently pursuing sculpture as part of their fine art study at the university.  From this initiative came the idea of the Mistletoe Acquisitive Sculpture Award a biennial sculpture prize open to current students of the University of Newcastle in which students created sculptures for permanent placement in the Mistletoe Wines Sculpture Garden.  The exhibition of entered works for this Award has been held at Watt Space, the student gallery of the university, in 2003,  2005,  2007 and now in 2009.
 
In 2005 the Sloans increased their sponsorship to $7,500 to enable interested students to apply for funding for the materials that they would need to create their large-scale sculptures.  The major award is now $2,500 with an encouragement award of $500 and grants totalling $4,500 were made available to up to eight students. 

This is the fourth occasion of the award with the works of the previous winners, April Erzetich Amphoric Family (2003), Sandra Lee Brown Spine of the Beast (2005) and Julian Lea Totem (2007), able to be viewed at Mistletoe in the sculpture garden.

The judges...

Anna Eggert is a Canberra-based artist who graduated from Australian National University in Fine Art in 1991 and has exhibited three dimensional work extensively in Australia since then in a variety of group, solo and prize exhibitions. Anna has been a finalist in a number of sculpture awards including Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney (2002); the McClelland Sculpture Award, Victoria (2003, 2004); National Sculpture Prize, National Gallery of Australia (2003) and The Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award, Victoria (2008).
 
Ken and Gwen Sloan are the principals of Mistletoe Wines which they established in 1989. 
Mistletoe has achieved national prominence as a boutique winery and has a five red star rating in the 2010 edition of the Australian Wine Companion putting it in the top 7% of all wineries in Australia. The Sloans are also avid art collectors and manage Pokolbin Gallery as part of their winery; they have sponsored the Mistletoe Acquisitive Sculpture Award at Watt Space since 2003.

the winners were:

2009 Mistletoe Acquisitive Sculpture Award:         
Tomoko Iwahashi Sunny Spot  steel

Encouragement Award:       
Leasha Craig   Beyond  stainless steel, wood, sandstone

with thanks to the sponsors  Mistletoe Wines, Pokolbin and the judges Ken and Gwen Sloan and Anna Eggert

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Minding Bodies

Timed to coincide with the second International Symposium on ArtsHealth to be held in Newcastle from 7-9 October, this group show of work by nine artists, current students of the University of Newcastle,  highlights the body as the site and subject for  pleasure/pain, image/text, this year’s conference theme.

Ellie Hannon  Adam Hendriksen  Mary Tyquin  Vicki Hamilton 
Madeline Young  Margaret Rayner  Vanessa Quinton  Tomoko Iwahashi