Raymond Arnold Pigment equals Mass – Abandoned Targa viewing platform, Queenstown Hills. The Datsun driver had thirty five minutes to live 2023 oil on canvas, diptych 104 x 154 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Congratulations to Raymond Arnold, who has been announced as a finalist in this year’s Hadley’s Art Prize, Hobart for his work Pigment equals Mass.
Presented by Hadley’s Orient Hotel, the Hadley’s Art Prize, Hobart is an acquisitive Australian landscape prize, which offers $100,000 to the winning entry.
Arnold’s work Pigment equals Mass was painted after a study made on-site in the hills of Queenstown, Tasmania. It follows on from a series formed in response to the hills around Arnold’s home, particularly the road which climbs out of the valley to the east.
Arnold states: “I started painting views of the Lyell Highway where it climbs east out of Queenstown, Tasmania, during lockdown. At the height of Covid I could walk that bitumen with vacancy and lose the pervasive sentiments in my mind. Indeed, the multitude of painted canvases that came from that period form a type of imaginary ossuary. Amplified into real world ‘stations of the cross’ on my/our march to the other side. Good friends already up over the gap and behind the dark horizon on that journey.”
On-site study for Pigment equals Mass – Abandoned Targa viewing platform, Queenstown Hills. The Datsun driver had thirty five minutes to live.
Hadley’s Orient Hotel has a long history with art, starting with art-loving landlords in the late 1800s. The Hadley’s Art Prize, Hobart contributes to the art community, celebrates excellence in contemporary landscape art, promotes cultural tourism in Tasmania, and restores art to the historic walls of Hadley’s Orient Hotel. Judged by a panel of art specialists, the prize is open to Australian artists over the age of eighteen working in two-dimensional media, at all career stages. This year, the Prize invites as its judges artists Wendy Sharpe, Milan Milojevic, and Fiona Foley. The artworks will be for sale during the exhibition.
Hadley’s Art Prize, Hobart
Hadley’s Orient Hotel
34 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS
22 July – 20 August 2023
Opening and winner announcement: Friday 21 July 2023
On site, Queenstown Hills.
Initial blocking in.
Work in progress on site.