It may come as a surprise that while women make up 70 per cent of art school graduates across Australia, female artists represent less than half of all gallery exhibitions and prizes.
It’s a statistic Ravenswood School for Girls set out to address in 2017 with the establishment of the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, Australia’s highest value art prize for women.
The prize, a true response to the adage ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’, was created to recognise, encourage and promote women in the arts through providing them a showcase for their works and, in doing so, inspiring the next generation of female creatives.
And it’s working. The prize has seen exponential growth in entries each year since its inception, attracting double the submissions received by the Archibald Prize.
“In 2022, we had artists from all over Australia – every state and territory represented. In total, there were 1,540 entries,” Ravenswood School for Girls Principal Anne Johnstone explains.
“This generous art prize is our contribution to advance Australia’s talent women artists… We believe it will enhance the visibility and significance of art careers for current and emerging Australian women artists, and hopefully inspire future generations of artists as well.”
As entries open for the 2023 prize, North Shore Living spoke with three such artistic trailblazers, the winners of the 2022 award categories, to discover how they are leading the way for women artists across the nation.
Lara Merrett
LARA MERRETT
WINNER OF THE PROFESSIONAL ARTIST AWARD
In the context of the 2020 Black Summer bushfires, the Eastern Australian floods of 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic, it is little wonder many of the prize entries found inspiration in the environment – the natural, home and personal.
A standout example of this was the winning artwork by Sydney-based Professional Artist Lara Merrett – Dusking (Nature Banner).
Acclaimed artist and Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize judge, Jennifer Turpin, says Lara’s luminous, large scale work ‘pushes the boundaries of what a painting can be’ through its deep exploration of media.
“Canvas is ripped and torn, colour and dyes are stained, washed and painted. The work appears joyously spontaneous but, in fact, results from an ongoing practice of endless experimentation of rejection and selection.”
Lara says the work was ‘created in the landscape, as much as about the landscape’, which included her leaving it outdoors to be exposed to the elements.
“It was a much more open practice, and that was due to shifting circumstances in COVID, not having access to studios and also wanting to be outside more, because I was next to a national park that had been badly affected by the fires when I was making that work,” she explains.
“I’m always asking that question in my own practice, about why we make a painting and how we make a painting, and different ways to make one.”
Lara says it was ‘amazing’ to see the range of works from female artists across the nation being celebrated by the prize and she was inspired by the diversity of entries.
“It is so open and diverse, that you can never know who the winner is,” she says.
“Especially if you’ve never done it before, do it. Because we don’t want the prizes to just keep reflecting the same list of names. This is the only way that people know about you, putting it out in the public sphere.”
NAZILA JAHANGIR
WINNER OF THE EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
As a postgraduate student at the University of Western Australia studying women, art and activism, it is fitting that Perth-based artist Nazila Jahangir should be the one to take out the Emerging Artist category.
She was awarded for her ‘haunting, mysterious and enigmatic’ oil on canvas A Midsummer Night’s Dream, depicting a young woman reclined across a picnic table next to two enormous eucalyptus flowers.
“This is an intriguing and magical painting,” Ms Turpin says. “It’s a frozen scene from a mystery drama that hasn’t been written yet.”
For Nazila, the work draws upon her creative practice, which focuses on an extended form of botanical art, to tell the story of an exotic flower in the context of a childhood memory.
“Through my botanical art, I invite the viewer to explore somewhat uncanny and feminist stories,” she says.
“I use this aesthetic to lure the public to discover and nurture different, more feminine, relations with the other-than-human –specifically plants.”
Nazila Jahangir
Having entered in 2021 and 2022, Nazila believes the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize is one of the best platforms for women artists in Australia and winning the Emerging Artist category proved a ‘turning point in her life’.
“Since then, I am more confident in what I am following: to become a woman, to become an artist, and to become an activist.”
MELINDA GEDJEN
WINNER OF THE INDIGENOUS EMERGING ARTIST
When Yolngu artist Melinda Gedjen brought in her weaving to the Bula’Bula Arts Centre in Ramingining, Northern Territory, executive director Mel George knew it ‘had magic’.
“The textures, colours and weave sung together harmoniously,” Ms George says.
“The woven elements use pandanus plant material which embodies the traditional knowledge of the Yolngu Nation. The plant material is worked and treated in the ways passed on from ancestors and, in doing, Yolngu recreate and identify with the sacred ceremonial objects which connect Yolngu to each other, to their past, their creative beings and to their Country.”
Ms George saw the work, Woven Mat, as an ‘ideal submission’ for the Indigenous Emerging Art Prize – the only art prize in Australia dedicated to Indigenous women artists.
Melinda Gedjen
The judges saw the magic too, praising the weaving as a ‘lively contemporary work’ that ‘speaks of Country and tradition’.
“Embedded in Gedjen’s artwork is all the energy, care, concentration and knowledge of its making,” Ms Turpin says.
Ms George says Melinda was overjoyed and in disbelief when she was told she had won the Indigenous Emerging Artist category.
“Her prize money was shared amongst her family and Melinda’s pride in winning and representing Yolngu culture is everlasting.”
Entries are now open for the 2023 Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize and will close on Wednesday 15 February at midday. Artworks can be in any media and must reflect the intentions of the artist’s practice.
With over $45,000 in prize money on offer, aspiring and established artists alike are encouraged to follow the words of Nazila – “Your goals are closer than you think. Stay confident, tell your own story and follow your heart.”
For more information or to enter, visit ravenswoodartprize.com.au.
