Previous Whanganui Arts Review Winners

2022 Chris Connolly

Past Possessive, Future Possessive (I) (Umpire Chair In Six Parts)

Mixed media

“I tried to come into this process with as open mind as possible. But deep down what I really hoped to find was an artist whose work I wasn’t familiar with at all, something that totally surprised, delighted and baffled me in equal measure. This artist truly delivered on that.

As I said earlier, there were a number of works that I think could have merited the Open Award, and this was a difficult decision. But what it came down to, was that this work made me really hungry to see more from this artist. It is a layered and perplexing work that combines elegant craftsmanship and surprising details. There are elements of Scandinavian minimalist housewares, modern industrial design and baroque animal-footed tables brought together in a way that still somehow manages to feel restrained in its form. The work also demonstrates strong conceptual thinking, drawing on the visual language of furniture and domestic wares to probe the meaning we unconsciously ascribe to our possessions.

This artist offered up a tantalising taste of a rich and surprising artistic practice, that I’m truly excited to see develop in collaboration with the wonderful curators of the Sarjeant Gallery in 2024″

Dr Chelsea Nichols, Senior Curator at the Dowse Art Museum was the judge of the Pattillo Whanganui Arts Review in 2022

2021 Andrea Gardner

Now I Have Your Attention

Inkjet print on Ilford Smooth Pearl

This year’s recipient of the Open Award and Pattillo Project is Andrea Gardner, who’s work Now I Have Your Attention, was described by this year’s judge Reuben Friend as “visually greedy, one of those works that when you walk into the space the colour really pops… it’s hard to walk past it, but on closer inspection there are narratives around climate change and sustainability. So you have these serious narratives being discussed within quite a fun environment, and I think that’s something we all need right now.”

Reuben Friend, director of Pataka Art + Museum was the judge of the Pattillo Whanganui Arts Review in 2021

2020 Tracy Byatt

Parrot Tulips – A Study in Sugar

Sugar

Tracy Byatt was born in the UK and now lives in the Turakina Valley. She was introduced to sugar work at an evening class but quickly moved from making generic cake flowers to self taught sculptural works. With a lifelong interest in nature, botanical illustration and art history her practice references a number of these traditions including Dutch still life paintings, sugar sculpture from the Renaissance period, the florilegium works of Joseph Banks and the glass botanical specimens of the Blaschka family. She is particularly intrigued by the concept of working in an essentially unchanged medium that was once so rare and highly prized, yet today is commonplace. She selects the plants from her own garden as study material and approaches her subject almost scientifically. Her process is slow and intensive as she ensures that each plant is as close to botanical correctness as possible.

“This work is an astonishing feat of craftsmanship which demonstrates a seamless relationship between an idea and its execution. The evocation of another era when asset prices deviated from intrinsic values is a haunting reminder of how unsatisfying the pursuit of wealth for its own sake can be. Like the socio-economic phenomenon it refers to, the method of manufacture of this art work is ephemeral, meaning the art work itself can be easily destroyed. It is a perfect marriage of content and form”

Judge Linda Tyler. Art historian, academic, curator and convener of museums and cultural heritage at the University of Auckland, Linda Tyler was the judge of the Pattillo Whanganui Arts Review in 2020

2019 Kathryn Wightman

AUSTIN

PLA

“This is another artist with an established practice who continues to push into new territory, and to explore new approaches. This work uses digital technology, not to finesse something into an unnatural perfection, but to look at the qualities of being digital. The resulting artefacts, glitches and gridded frameworks allow the object to break down in interesting ways that play with scale and materiality to question the kind of scaffolding we use to construct images and objects” – Andre This is another artist with an established practice who continues to push into new territory, and to explore new approaches. This work uses digital technology, not to finesse something into an unnatural perfection, but to look at the qualities of being digital. The resulting artefacts, glitches and gridded frameworks allow the object to break down in interesting ways that play with scale and materiality to question the kind of scaffolding we use to construct images and objects”

2019 judge, Andrew Clifford, Director Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery

2018 Kathryn Wightman

Breathe

Kiln-formed glass, sintered glass powder

Wightman began working with glass as a BA student at the University of Sunderland (UK) in 2000 where she obtained a first class honours degree in Glass and Ceramics followed by an MA (with distinction) in 2005 in glass. In 2006 she was awarded a two-year Craft Council placement (UK) to assist her in establishing a creative practice. Ph.D. research that she undertook at the University of Sunderland (UK) 2012 focused on the development and integration of glassmaking and printmaking processes. Her research was funded by the Arts Humanities research Council (AHRC) England. Wightman has since worked as a visiting lecturer on the Glass and Ceramics program at the University of Sunderland (UK) & has worked as a glassmaker at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. In 2012 she relocated to New Zealand to take up a post of Lecturer in Glass at the Whanganui Glass School. She has since won both the Emerge Glass Prize 2014 & the last ever Ranamok Glass Prize. Wightman is delivering workshops across the world and now lectures in numerous creative areas across the Whanganui School of Design.

2017 Andrea du Chatenier

Yellow melt porcelain

Born in Hamilton, du Chatenier completed a BFA at the University of Auckland in 1995 and MFA degree through RMIT, Melbourne in 1998. She has since received numerous grants and awards for her accomplished and challenging work, including selection for the Sao Paulo Biennale in 2004, a runner-up placing in the 2007 Wallace Art Awards and The Wallace Art Awards Jury prize in 2015. In 2017 she won the Portage Award & with it a residency to study at the prestigious International Ceramic Centre in Guldagergaard.

In 2004 du Chatenier was awarded the Tylee Cottage Artist Residency at the Sarjeant Gallery. Upon the completion of this residency she chose to remain in Whanganui, where she now teaches at UCOL’s School of Fine Arts. Du Chatenier has shown widely both nationally and internationally for more than a decade.

2016 Mark Rayner

Self Portrait

Latch hook wool on rug canvas

Mark Rayner began working in ceramics in 2003 and has produced numerous works for local and national exhibitions since. In August 2007, he and his brother Paul opened Rayner Brothers Gallery in Whanganui where they show their own work along with that of guest artists. Rayner was a finalist in the 2011 & 2014 Wallace Art Awards

2014 Lance Hayes (Penni Wyse)

Harry Fat

Automotive wire

Since graduating with a BFA at the Quay School of the Arts where he was taught by sculptor Bob Bourdon, Hayes has become well known for his large wooden sculptures & furniture as well as works made from automotive wire.

2013 Prakash Patel

Astronaut

Acrylic on canvas

Patel has won the Whanganui Arts Review on three occasions & in 2016 he was selected for a major exhibition and auction at Aratoi Museum of Art and History. Patel has been a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards many times & has exhibited widely in New Zealand.

2011 Katherine Claypole

The Thief

Graphite on paper

Claypole received her first arts degree at Auckland’s Unitec, and went on to get a Master’s degree at Canterbury University’s School of Fine Arts. She moved to Wanganui in 2004. Claypole taught at Whanganui UCOL for several years & was shortlisted for the Parkin Prize in 2017.

2010 Catherine Macdonald

A Place Where Things Really Happen

Mixed media

Macdonald studied Fine Arts at Whanganui Regional Polytechnic and graduated in 1997 with a BFA majoring in Printmaking. In 1998 she was Community Artist in Residence for the Community Arts Council Whanganui and she took part in another Residency in 1999 at Pompallier House in Russell. In 2003 she was commissioned to design and hand print the cover for Real Life Bird Song published by Wai-te-Ata Press, V.U.W. She has had articles published in Imprint, The Journal of the Print Council of Australia and Printmaking Today, UK. She exhibits throughout New Zealand and her work is held in collections in New Zealand, Australia and the UK

2009 Brit Bunkley

Distant Submarine

Lambda print

Bunkley is represented in numerous international collections & his grants & fellowships include a Wallace Trust grant, New York State fellowship, New York State Council on the Arts project grant, a USA National Endowment for the Arts fellowship & the American Rome Prize fellowship.
Bunkley has exhibited at the White Box Gallery in NYC, The Centre Pompidou, Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid & in Berlin, Brazil & Moscow.

In 2013 he received a Special Mention (“Best Idea Category”): EVA – Experimental Video Architecture awards, selected by an International Jury; in 2012 3rd prize- Now&After’12, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russian Federation & 2011 was the winner of the Sculpture Wanganui 2011 Award, Whanganui, New Zealand.

2008 Andrew Ritson

I do not find any fault in him

Pencil on paper

Ritson also won the Whanganui Arts Review Open Award in 2002

2007 Jo Russ

Contemporary Gladiator

Found objects, acrylic, polyurethane

Russ is based in Las Vegas where she is the Arts Program Co-ordinator at the Neon Museum, Las Vegas & a drawing instructor at UNLV College of Fine Arts. She has had solo exhibitions in the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Sin City Gallery of Las Vegas, Paulnache Gisborne & the Dowse Art Museum.