Tasmanian artists Marion Abraham and Bliss Sandhu have been crowned the winners of the 2024 Henry Jones Art Prize.
Abraham took home the Painting Prize and $20,000 for her oil on board piece titled ‘Good Girls’, while Sandhu won the Mixed Media Prize and $20,000 for his digital photographic print ’07:32′.
Curator Tina Zucco praised the exceptional work of both winners, saying Abraham’s piece is “evocative and broody with a painterly technique that is both gestural and soft creating depth and contrast”.
She described Sandhu’s winning entry as “very compelling and of-the-moment in the way that taps into that addiction to mobile phones”.
“It was a very competitive field with 117 entries across the two categories, but Marion and Bliss were the exceptions,” Zucco said.
Sandhu, a PhD researcher in the media space, said his artwork is inspired by his research that explores how people’s understanding of the world is shaped by media and communication.
“It’s a moment of reflection for the viewer to introspect on their relationship with the information that they’re consuming,” he said.
Abraham’s winning piece depicts her relationship with her sister and their work in the community.
“It talks about … what our values are as we grow older together as adults and I think how we’re fathoming our ancestry and our history in the family,” she said.
“And what that means to us now and how we’re living our lives at the moment.”
The exhibition of the 2024 finalists will be open to the public, free of charge, from November 21 to December 3 in the Henry Jones atrium.
