Above image: Michelle Hiscock, Rock wall, Settlers Road (2017), oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
Congratulations to Michelle Hiscock who has been selected as a finalist in the 2018 NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize for her work ‘Rock Wall, Settlers Road’.
ABOUT THE PLEIN AIR PRIZE
The NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize is an acquisitive art prize of $20,000, awarded for the best ‘plein air’ painting of NSW subject. The Plein Air Painting Prize is an annual event and is recognised by plein air artists throughout Australia. The term ‘en plein air’ refers to the practice of painting out of doors, in direct engagement with nature, where the transitory effects of light can be observed and recorded. Contemporary Australian artists paint ‘en plein air’ both in the bush and the city. The NSW Parliament encourages artists to embrace the tradition and feel of ‘plein air’ to create new art works depicting subjects in the beautiful state of NSW. Painting in the tradition of ‘en plein air’ allows the artist to capture something more than just the depiction of a landscape, adding mood and atmosphere to the setting.
The exhibition is current until 31 October, 2018 at NSW Parliament House, 6 Macquarie Street, Sydney.
To view the 2018 finalists click here.
ABOUT THE WORK
Rock Wall, Settler’s Road was painted while Michelle Hiscock was the inaugural St Albans Artist in Residence in the Spring of 2017. For Hiscock, the interplay between memory and nature is central to her practice, and her residency at St Albans provided a rich natural and cultural landscape to explore ideas around historical narratives of place. While Hiscock’s work focuses on nature, it is equally concerned with the way that both the traditions of art and the memory of events shape our experience of the landscape. During her residency, Hiscock painted sites and natural landmarks around St Albans that are on Darkinyung country. Here, the act of painting is a form of meditation on both the Indigenous and colonial histories that resonate in the serene landscape of St Albans today. Thus Hiscock’s work, with its profound feeling for the spirit of place, for echoes of pain and nostalgia, allows contemporary audiences to contemplate the intrinsic connection between place, memory and time.
Above images: Taken by Michelle Hiscock during her 2017 artist residency in St Albans, NSW.