We acknowledge that we are on traditional lands of the Kulin Nation. We offer respect to the Elders of these traditional lands past, present and emerging, and through them to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Footscray Art Prize
The Footscray Art Prize is a biennial visual art prize open to local and national artists, showcasing contemporary artworks across multiple disciplines. It is a collaboration between Maribyrnong City Council, Footscray Community Arts, Victoria University and The Rotary Club of Footscray. The Prize was initiated in 2016 to commemorate Victoria University's Centenary celebrations and had its inaugural opening in 2017.
The Footscray Art Prize seeks to enhance Footscray's reputation as a thriving cultural hub that fosters the arts and celebrates artistic vibrancy and creativity.
Categories
Footscray Art Prize, $20,000 Local Acquisition Prize, $10,000 Residency Artist Prize, $2,000 Young Artist Prizes Primary students, $500 | Secondary students, $500
Charlotte Day Judges Associate Director, Art Museums at the University of Melbourne.
Phuong Ngo Artist and Curator
Shonae
Hobson Curator, First Nations Art National Gallery of Victoria
Dawn Tan Artist and Art Curator
(Judge for the Young Artist Prize category)
Kate Robinson Artist
(Judge for the Young Artist Prize category)
Message from the judges
This year’s entries are a testament to the creativity and ingenuity of our thriving arts community. The selection process introduced the judges to new and exciting artists and practices from across the country. We’d like to extend a special congratulations to all the artists who entered, it has been an absolute pleasure to engage with your work and we acknowledge the time and effort taken to do so.
It was inspiring and reassuring to see so many entries of such a high calibre after a couple of tough years for creative practitioners. Thank you to the Footscray Art Prize team for their dedication and to our fellow judges - what a privilege to look at the breadth of practices and concerns with you.
Message from the partners
Welcome to the 2023 Footscray Art Prize, a celebration of contemporary art across various mediums and disciplines. As partners of this prestigious event, Maribyrnong City Council Footscray Community Arts, The Rotary Club of Footscray, and Victoria University are proud to invest in the careers of contemporary visual artists by profiling and sharing their work with the community
With no specific theme, the Footscray Art Prize is an open platform that encourages artists from all corners of the nation to showcase their unique perspectives and artistic prowess. We are excited to witness the diverse range of artworks that will be on display, embodying the spirit of Footscray as a thriving cultural hub.
Young Artist Prize
This category celebrates the unbridled creativity of young people from Melbourne’s West. All artworks entered in this category are displayed in the exhibition!
There are two entry categories, based on school level:
Primary school. Secondary school.
The winner in each entry category is awarded $500. For a list of the entrants, please see overleaf.
Luque Agborchi
Aanisah Aini
Ebony Allen
Ryan Amarasinghe
Sabrella Aphram
Leanne Estelle Arenas
Axl Baird
Sara Banjanin
Emily Barnabas
Lucy Barnard
Riya Berdia
Kavya Bhaskaran
Helena Blitsas
Elijah Boulus
Illisianna Brumley
Zoe Bryant
Saanvi Cleary
Alyssa Cunanan
Xanthe Dalziel
Lena Daoud-Kolusniewski
Rudy Daoud-Kolusniewsk
Saskia Davis
Anouk Dewhurst
Eddy Edwards
Juliet Fahy
Sienna Ford
Colette Foster
Jessica Galea
Laasya Gantimahapatruni
Frances Gentile
Lucy Giatas
Gloria Gibson
Jasmin Gibson
Scarlett Gibson
Alyse Gill
Jadyn Gregorio
Esme Hamlett
Pippa Hatton
Alyssa Havran
Julia Henry
Lu Holzer-Vowles
Zoe Hua
Kayley Irvine
Anastasia Joseski
Daniel Jukes
Imogen Jukes
Leo Jukes
Luxe Julian
Nathan Katigbak
Rachna Kartic
Anna Kolusniewski
Amy Kuna
Zoe Lampard
Jia-Zhen Lu
Kezia Macaulay
Imaan Malik
Jemima Marks
Allegra Matina
Isabella Mcavoy-Wood
Amali McCoppin
Lila Mielczarek
Marlo Mielczarek
Abigail Mitchell
Munkhmaral Munkhsukh
Muhammad Hassan Mirza
Jem Murphy
Grace Nguyen
Amelia Nicholas
Bianca Ogilvie
Ava Opt Hoog
Shiloh Parekh
Zuri Parekh
James Parr
Matilda Plarre
William Pope
Lithesh Posina
Scarlett Presta
Jessica Preston
Ysannah Pumo
Shaya Quilty
Suneth Ratnasekara
Atharva Rawat
Saanvi Rawat
Malachi Rizzo
Gypsy Roberts
Abigail Rose
Olivia Royal
Carolyn Sagalongos
Rishva Sagane
Syazwana Saifudin
Hannah Sampang
Peace Samuels
Oliver Samyue
Meenakshi Sharma
Abigail Singh
Ava Belle Siskovskiof
Miles Stephenson
Pearl Stephenson
Charlie Stevens
Emily Stevenson
Kyani Troedel
Cecelia Varone
Hanna Visagie
Alex Vy
Bernadette Walker
Josie Walker
Jack Wall
Ruby Ward
Luna Wardy
Vilara Wickramasinghe
Jaxson Williams
Josie Woollard
Micaela Xerri
Audrey Yan
Robbie Yan
Elyas ALAVI
DROWNING, 2022 (detail)
Oil painting on canvas
100 x 140
Inspired by an actual dream and personal memories this painting is a reflection on a fallen world, expressions of personal crisis and loss amid the ongoing trauma of war and displacement. It specifically references the tragic cycle of conflicts deep-rooted to colonialism and western involvement in the Middle East.
Giordano BIONDI
Dead Ghosts #12 2023 (detail)
Single edition digital print
42 x 30
Giordano Biondis Dead Ghosts series portrays translucent vessels as ghostly apparatuses that express the dual ambiguous dialectic between the animate and the inanimate. Using a digital scanner, these delicate architectures composed by miscellaneous material create the illusion of three-dimensional objects in a nondescript nocturnal space.
Fleur BRETT
Hunting the Tiger, 2022 (detail)
Rug hooked textile wall piece
186 x 107
Despite scientific consensus that the Thylacine died out by the 1960s some believe the animal still lives. People have a psychological need to believe these animals exist A pelt made from hessian using a primitive hook, mimics early colonial rugs The artist's shadow represents a white coloniser witness to slaughter.
Nicholas BURRIDGE
Explosive Forming 2022 (detail)
Sculpture
120 x 120 x 10
This artwork is informed by the history of the Footscray Munitions Factories drawing a parallel between the mark left by a bullet and the effect of manufacturing on a landscape. An explosion forms the brass sheet and over time the residue and brass react mimicking the chemical residue left by industry
Carolyn CARDINET
Charcoaled, 2022 (detail)
Found punctured bicycle tubes
200 x 70 x 70
Summer fires
Charred trees
Melted plastic
Polluting simultaneously this landscape
What will be the future of this unloved earth. This work has been inspired by the devastation of the NSW bushfires and the overwhelming sense of our connection to the destruction of the landscape. VIC
Rhys COUSINS
Bound, 2022 (detail)
Gypsum plaster, sand, acrylic on board
150 x 75
Bound is a work of plaster bricks, laid in a herringbone pattern in an off-white colour, with three vertical bars sitting front. The artwork is a metaphor for the contemporary human, bound by and to their environment referencing colonial construction techniques and the historical traces present in our urban environment
Jessie DEANE
The Big Build, 2023 (detail)
Needlepoint - cotton thread on canvas
75 x 65
Eventually the 250-tonne gantry crane that carries the weight of the West Gate Tunnel build will be gone I am documenting this moment while the unyielding monolith dominates the skyline The work represents the crane in malleable thread, gently challenging its pretence as a vast, static landmark
Chelle DESTEFANO
Blackboard!, 2021
Video performance and installation with found objects (shoes)
2 minutes, 55 seconds
David EGAN
Dreaming the Middle Ages, 2022 (detail)
Oil and pumice on canvas
112 x 122
This painting is a representation of a Fra Angelico Annunciation panel The colours are much more saturated than in the Angelico and the Virgin Mother and angel have been replaced by pansy flowers which hold up ornamental playing cards.
Mark FORBES
Lost to History 2021 (detail)
CType photographic print
102 x 121
This image is part of the artist's Beautiful Solitude series The premise of the series is that traces of beauty exist everywhere around us. These scenes can be found just around the corner in all of our daily lives Sometimes all we may need is to pause to experience them
Edwina GREEN, Trawlwoolway
Eco Binded 2022
Moving image text and sound
2 minutes 1 second
Eco-Binded speaks about connectivity of the climate crisis a colonised, destroyed and damaged environment. "The water that came through our taps was orange, and the mountains I climbed were pink, and the only income of this town was through the destruction of this land" (Eco Binded).
VIC
Subsequent to shortlist ng the artist entered into employment w th Maribyrnong Council and is now inel gible for prizes
Jody HAINES, Tommeginne/Palawa
The Last Supper 2021 (detail)
Mixed sculptural
170 x 50 x 2
The Last Supper explores lost wetlands specifically a saltwater blue lake, now destroyed due to settler colonial destruction The chandelier panels depict what was or could have been hanging above a low table set for one with rotting food and feathers. The work addresses colonialism, greed and environmental destruction
Hootan HEYDARI
Yadeghary (Memento), 2023 (detail)
Sculpture
32 x 45 x 10
Hundreds of photographs reproduced from the artists family archive are individually dipped in plaster before being stacked on top of one another. They are housed in a purpose-built, glass-fronted steel cabinet. The cabinet is a Wunderkammer acting as a time capsule.
Isabella HONE-SAUNDERS
To float, so ungraspably 2022-2023 (detail)
Sculpture
68 x 179 x 141
To float, so ungraspably is a skip-bin internally clad with blue ceramic tiles accompanied by a wall mounted grab rail A transgressive gesture, the converted skip symbolises the mikveh, which is an immersion pool or bath and is an incredibly rich symbol of transcendence purity and transformation in Jewish culture.
Virginia KEFT, Murrawarri
Birthday Yellow (Wattle on Country), 2022 (detail)
Charcoal ink, pencil paint pen, raffia on canvas
92 x 123
Baiame’s Ngunnhu is a sacred meeting place for Murrawarri Ngemba, Ualarai, and Wailwan Peoples
Corporate irrigators drain the river to feed their crops
During times of drought, Country suffers. The people animals birds, trees, plants and grasses are all connected The health of the river is the health of Country.
Fassih KEISO
The Last Gathering, 2023 (detail)
Three layers of photo print on plastic film on acrylic and collected war debris from Syria
74 x 55
The Last Gathering is a personal biographical artwork emphasising the socio-cultural narrative that is driven by war machines, spanning from 1915 massacre to 2011 war The five year olds Syriac father fled from Turkey to Syria forming a family 2010 was the last gathering of the 12 children in northeast Syria before the Lord scattered them..
VIC
Sara KIAN-JUDGE, Walbunja-Yuin
Autistic Animals, 2022-2023 (detail)
White ink & watercolour pencils on black paper
73 x 50
Animals help me understand my autism. When people talk about culling bats and sharks it feels the same as when they talk about curing autistic people So I sometimes feel more bat or shark than human These drawings express proprioception and sensory disturbance through my relationships with bats and sharks
Anna KIPARIS
Aftermath Maribyrnong, 2022 (detail)
Inkjet on Cotton Rag - Digital Photograph
55 x 80
Taken on Sunday 16th October 2022 In the quiet hours of the aftermath in Maribyrnong, where flood-damaged belongings lay out on the nature strips of devasted residents. The suburb became an urban exposed graveyard leaving a trail of tragedy with many lifetimes of accumulated possessions ruined
Annika KOOPS
Strokes, 2022
Single channel HD video with sound
5 minutes 13 seconds
Strokesisamovingimageworkthatexploreshowthe corporealandpersonalaredistilledintodatathrough thecaptureandcodificationofhumanmotion The work utilises Computer Generated Imagery, digital video motioncaptureandAItodrawlinksbetween animationandautomation
Thisworkwasproducedinpartwithassistancefrom the Australia Council for the Arts Arts Projects for IndividualsandCreativeVictoriaWiththankstoUNSW
Art and Design Residency and the Human Robot InteractionLab
DOPMatthewStanton
MotionCapturePerformanceWendyYu
Abbra KOTLARCZYK
Bridgehead (de)composition / Sweating the impurities, 2022 (detail)
Hand-perforated earth- mpregnated and squeeze papers tailors and childrens chalk, wax graphite copic markers acrylic polymer starch paste Acac a Gum crystals Tasmanian oak
200 x 49 x 3
Developed as part of the multi-site exhibition To touch or strike a fondant ground (Bus Projects & West Space 2022) this work honours the artist’s grandfathers enforced labours as a stone-mason during WWII poking holes in Hitler’s monumental Bridgehead Buildings to remediate new, soft archi-poetic blueprints in local Merri Creek clays
Nikki LAM
the unshakable destiny 2101, 2021
Minaal LAWN
Adorned Vessel No. 5 (for Fury), 2023
Adrian LAZZARO No Vak to Yes Vak (Djokovic), 2022
Jack LEE
Your Body is A Temple, My Body is A Cage, 2022
5 minutes 46 seconds
16mm film transferred to 2K digital with sound the unshakable destiny 2101 is the opening film to the expansive video trilogy that explores the misalignment between histories and cinema; aesthetics and power; colonial gaze and the migrant body. As Hong Kong transforms its resistance from political to the personal, how are our relationships to our image shifting over time?
Ceramic, glaze
34 x 38 x 38
Adorned Vessel No 5 (for Fury) continues Minaals fascination with sculptural and aesthetic elements of traditional Hindu temple architecture The concept of Murti (idol of worship) is abstracted through a recontextualization of the utilitarian vessel to an adorned form, edifying it beyond a container.
375 x 44
Gouache and paint pen on paper No Vak to Yes Vak (Djokovic) is a satirical portrait of Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic after he was embroiled in the legal and media controversy over his opposition to forced vaccination in 2021. The artist has inscriped comical text over Djokovics mask
Single channel video with sound
6 minutes 29 seconds
Speculating on the intersection between race religion gender, and sexuality this work emerges from an inquiry into the concept of ‘in-between’ of cultures places and identities. A temple nestled inside a citadel serves as a backdrop for the dancer to emulate the genderfluid KuanYin of A Thousand Arms.
Jenna LEE, Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman & KarraJarri
Words and Place Names 2022 (detail)
12 pages of the book, Aboriginal Words and Place Names, fire frame
107.4 x 72.5
This series applies processes of regenerate elemental deconstruction (fire) to alter pages of the book, Aboriginal Words and Place Names - versions of which are still published today - in order to heal the misrepresented words and re-write words of ecosystems of importance and fire methods in Gulumerridjin (Larrakia) language.
Ming LIEW
How I
Will
Remember, 2022
33 minutes, 1 second
Video
How Will I Remember is an experimental essay film exploring immigrant identity in relation to loss, grief and image-making. It draws upon my lived experience as a first-generation Chinese immigrant, depicting fragments of my memory as I detach from my ethnic past and embrace my Australian future
Donna MARCUS
CODE 2003/DIFF CODE 2023, 2003-2023 (detail)
Found painted aluminium
118 x 118 x 12
Code 2003/ DIFF 2023 builds a new layer onto an older work, creating deeper crevices and complex surface patterns by adding detritus (namely round electric frying pan lids) collected in the intervening decades
The title borrows from coding language “DIFF” denotes differences needing to be slotted into place.
Kent MORRIS, Barkindji
Waa and Wattle, 2022
Single-channel digital video, silent
2 minutes, 59 seconds
By visually deconstructing and reassembling western systems the work mirrors the methodical disassembly and denial of First Peoples cultural knowledge and reshapes the built environment and nature into new forms that reflect First Nations knowledge systems surviving, regenerating and continually evolving reinforcing First Peoples cultural continuity since time immemorial
David MURPHY
Rubiscos First 13, 2022 (detail)
Stainless steel, mild steel
42 x 21 x 21
A portait of DNA, defined by the Fibonacci numbers, a billion times larger than life. It is coded with the first thirteen base pairs Rubisco lifes most abundant enzyme that plants use to split CO2. It is the primary way carbon enters the biosphere, and the source of the oxygen we breathe
James NGUYEN We Loot 2022
Single Channel Video
16 minutes, 28 seconds
My cultural recovery of Vietnamese antiquities is complicated by an unexpected discovery that my uncle was involved in the local theft and looting of cultural artefacts after the Vietnam war. Object repatriation cultural reclaimation and desecration is something complex, dynamic, and multidirectional. Repatriation and theft is not always straight-forward
Connor OVENDEN-SHAW
Self Proclaimed Enigma, 2022 (detail)
Katie PAINE A Lonely Circumnavigation, 2022
62 x 87
Photograph Now at this post-year-2000 height of transgender scrutiny I beg the question why are we so fascinated with asking about genitals? As if what lay beneath is a ticket to a better future, that the textiles we wear and blankets we comfort in are barriers to better social standing.
Video Installation monitor fabricated steel TV trolley, enamel, yellow cable cord
12 minutes, 30 seconds
A Lonely Circumnavigation is a video installation which tells the story of a fictional realm called The Doldrums in which a grieving protagonist haunts the residents of a hospital The video explores ideas of spectral communication melancholia and the slippery nature of memory.
i lost my marbles 4u, 2021-23 (detail) black marbles, resin, black aluminium, latex, artist's frame
Victoria PHAM
DOMESTICUS VENUS, 2022
Installation: Film and Sculpture
9 minutes, 12 seconds
Domesticus Venus is a mockumentary satirical video and sculpture installation contemplating the systems that define cultural knowledge production In particular is the works tongue and cheek play on archaeological methodologies asking of us: what if Venus figurines were toys? Domesticus Venus was commissioned by KINGS ARIST RUN. NSW
i lost my marbles 4u looks at the idiom of ‘losing ones marbles’ to represent a state of fall, ellation and loss. The work captures black marbles amidst descent to immortalise a fleeting moment of perfect turmoil. Like infatuation in a state of eternal passion–or a child in never-ending play–these glass balls are caught in the heat of black aluminium foil where they burn without combusting. The piece is a grieving object celebrating the transience of life, where we move like ghosts in a parade of dissipating memories. This work belongs to Ramírez's ongoing series Snowflake where he references idioms with materials, such as losing one’s marbles, to depict emotional states of mind.
Bruce REYNOLDS
False Memories, 2021 (detail)
Acrylic Paint on linoleum on wood panel
107 X 83
Inlaid fragments of linoleum from Queensland houses are inset into a continuous surface with applied paint. They populate a field where shards of domestic flooring are gathered in tension between the material and the imaginary or remembered. They occupy an ambiguous space and allude to places and events previously experienced.
Though Buried, They Echo, 2022
Video installation with perspex in gallery floor broadcast monitor and single channel standard definition video.
3 minutes, 59 seconds
In Though Buried, They Echo, the faces of racist policy makers whose legacies still today define Australian and South African colonial law are situated beneath the gallery floor An intervention into the gallerys architecture the installation asks us to question who we hear and see and what we act upon.
VIC
Diego RAMIREZFoni SALVATORE
Adau, 2021 (detail)
Oil paint
61 x 46
Portrait of Adau, a South Sudanese woman.
VIC
Noah SPIVAK
we who sit but cannot sit still (waverley VI), 2022 (detail)
Resin, Black Aluminium Latex, Modified frame
Cathy STAUGHTON
Dano and Cathy married magic kingdom, 2022 (detail)
Jennifer TRAN with Veronica Charmont, Mara Schwerdtfeger, Kelly Bartholomeusz Damien Laing
How To Build A Forest 2022
Spivak frames moments of light and texture - presenting dynamic surfaces that are rooted in 18th century alchemy It is silver's profound versatility that has kept Spivak in the pursuit of understanding such an elusive and historic medium
90 x 90 VIC
Acrylic and paint pen on paper
70 x 50
Dano and Cathy married magic kingdom is a portrait in acrylic and paint pen depicting the artist and her companion The artist is legally deaf and blind and paints with a magnifying visor. The couple wear wizard hats and gold chains wielding golden optical devices.
Digital video
6 minutes 14 seconds
Shot on 16mm film the video work is a perspective of Agnes Denes land artwork, A Forest For Australia (1998). What begins as a scientific mission becomes a meditation on place, memory and the weight of progress.
Dustin VOGGENREITER
The Dark Matter #2, 2023
Animated GIF
This work explores the idea of our limited capacity to understand the world around us As creatures born with sense organs geared towards survival we grasp at making sense of the complex reality we inhabit
Belinda YEE
Marking time with you and I, 2022 (detail)
Ink on archival card
76 x 52
When mum died I struggled to find time to process what had happened I started a simple drawing, marking cells across a page and thinking about her. The paper became a live space of engagement, a stage, and like a seismograph, holds the trace of time I spend with her
Ammar YONIS
Salon Gâr 2023
35mm film photograph on silk
140 x 157
Salon Gâr attempts to capture the development of an invisible bond between friends in a suburban setting within the context of Australian migration. The search for companionship is very personal and for the artist it often comes in the form of moments like these.
