麻豆社madou

The Jenny Birt Award 2024

Congratulations to all students recognised as finalists for the 2024 Jenny Birt Award.

Personalise
Keroshin Govender work image 3


Congratulations to all students recognised as finalists for the 2024 Jenny Birt Award.?

For almost 30 years, Jenny Birt has been encouraging and supporting young artists to pursue and build careers as professional practicing artists. One of the ways she has supported young and emerging artists is through an annual award – the Jenny Birt Award at 麻豆社madou Art & Design.?

The Jenny Birt Award was initiated in 1995 by the ‘U Committee’ and is the longest running and most prestigious award for Painting within the 麻豆社madou Art & Design academic calendar. Candidates are nominated by academic staff and then selected for inclusion in the exhibition and consideration for the $4,000 Jenny Birt Award.?

This year’s exhibition at??(19-28 June 2024) featured the work of twenty finalists:

Nell Bradshaw, Tash Brobyn, Jess Curran, Carolina de Almeida Guarino, Jordan Dempsey, Mercedes Dunn, Yolanda Dussek, Bridget Fung, Nath Gee, Keroshin Govender,?Helen Holder, Chetan Immidi, Trinity Johnson, Mei Lin Meyers, Narrelle Odeh, Lucy Parkinson, Lige Qiao, Skye Wallace, Junnie Wang, Mark Wilson.

The judging panel included (artist and 麻豆社madou alum) and Dr Verónica Tello (Senior Lecturer, 麻豆社madou Art & Design).

Winner

Congratulations to the winner of the 2024 Jenny Birt Award, Keroshin Govender for their work Vatsala and Marimuthu.

The judges commented: Govender’s work stands out for its sophisticated use of materials and processes to draw out a range of multi-layered narratives, connecting with complex diasporic histories and experiences from the Global South. The materials and ideas work together harmoniously. The materials carry their own resonances and meanings, which are complemented by layers of imagery to highlight the interconnections between personal, familial, and cultural histories. The work is enhanced by being able to be read from both sides, with embroidered lines connecting the two faces of the work. The work also has a strong sense of material experimentation, indicative of a practice with significant potential to develop into the future. Congratulations Keroshin.

Highly commended

Lige Qiao for 我,父亲,白桦林: Why are we still sitting here when it's winter outside.

The judges commented: Lige Qiao’s work uses modest materials to develop an engaging and thoughtful reflection on absence, memory, family, and class. The work’s sculptural form and spatial arrangement encourages an embodied experience that is playful and theatrical, but also poignant and poetic. There is a tenderness and vulnerability in the subject matter, which is enhanced through the consideration of colour palette and mark making techniques.

Special mention

Nell Bradshaw for Untitled.

The judges commented: Bradshaw’s work is highly labour intensive, combining multiple techniques from painting, animation, and moving image. The combination of sound and image create a captivating viewing experience, with the visible textural and physical qualities particularly engaging. Through its multi-disciplinary approach to world building, the work speaks to inheritances in Australian art history and settler colonialism, while also questioning how to represent and reconstruct conceptions of landscape today.

Content warning: Some of the artworks in this exhibition engage with themes and imagery that could cause discomfort or be triggering for some.

The 2024 Finalists

Acknowledgement of Country

麻豆社madou School of Art & Design stands on an important place of learning and exchange first occupied by the Bidjigal and Gadigal peoples.

We acknowledge the Bidjigal and Gadigal peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land that our students and staff share, create and operate on. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend this respect to all First Nations peoples across Australia. Sovereignty has never been ceded.