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COFA's Ian Grant Wins Major Prize

Article released: Tuesday, 16 November, 2004

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Artist Ian Grant has won the 2004 Fleurieu Peninsula Art Prize with a painting taken from experiences in south-western NSW, entitled Hillside (Horizon).

Present at the Gala Awards Dinner in McLaren Vale - the picturesque wine region located 45km south of Adelaide - Mr. Grant said he was stunned, thrilled and overwhelmed by the win.

"My painting isn't representative of any specific location. It more depicts the kind of land that one would find in many parts of Australia. I'm most interested in using visual structure and pattern to make everyday experiences memorable and to evoke a meditative, or deep emotional response,"he said of his winning painting, 137cmx137cm in acrylic on linen.

"There's also an influence of some Aboriginal painting in its capacity to poetically evoke without illustrating a particular site in a Western sense."

Mr Grant, 57, who is Head, Painting Studies, University of NSW College of Fine Arts, has been exhibiting since 1974 and showing with Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney since 1999. He has been researching the imaging of landscape for about 10 years and is the presiding member of the Imaging the Land International Research Institute (ILIRI). He won the Blake Prize for religious art in 1987.

The $50,000 Fleurieu Peninsula Art Prize is the richest prize for Australian landscape painting in the nation, and as the headline event of the Fleurieu Peninsula Biennale, it is sponsored jointly by The Hardy Wine Company, Wirra Wirra Vineyards and Tinlin's Wines. Paintings by 55 finalists have been exhibited at Hardys Main Barrel Hall, Hardys Tintara Winery, McLaren Vale since 6 November, and will continue to be shown until 28 November. Entry is free to the exhibition.

This year's international judge was William J.S. Boyle CM, CEO of Toronto's 4,000-event-a-year arts and cultural Harbourfront Centre and one of North America's most eminent arts figures, who judged alongside distinguished Australian artist Tim Storrier AM, and art writer and critic Susan McCulloch.

Mr Boyle said the Art Prize was one of the largest painting prizes in the world, and "an impressive accomplishment for the region".