2022 NSW VISUAL ARTS EMERGING FELLOWSHIP

Artist and curator fellowship tour

Wednesday 31 August
12.45–1.45pm
NAS Gallery

Walk-through with artists: Rainbow Chan, Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen, Joe Wilson, Genevieve Felix Reynolds.

Led by co-curator and Executive Director, Artspace, Alexie Glass-Kantor.

With over 100 years of history, the NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship (NSW VAEF) profiles the breadth and dynamism of emerging contemporary artists in NSW. Now in its 23rd year of partnership with Artspace, the fellowship continues to define new generations of contemporary art practice for both artists and audiences. The NSW VAEF is a significant visual arts Fellowship delivered in partnership with the NSW Government, through Create NSW and Artspace.

This year the NSW VAEF is presented for the first time at NAS Gallery and co-curated with Artspace. Each year, the finalists undertake a period of development with a curators from Artspace as they working towards an ambitious group exhibition. Held at Artspace since 1997, the NSW VAEF the finalists are selected by a judging panel who then award one artist $30,000 towards a program of professional development.

In 2022 the seven finalists – Eddie Abd, Chun Yin Rainbow Chan, Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen, Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier, Emily Parsons-Lord, and Genevieve Felix Reynolds – will have their work exhibited at the National Art School. This years exhibition features new site-specific works which engage with the poetics and possibilities of memory, time and transformation. Through experimental material play, using media ranging from the ephemeral to the unexpected – silk banners, stitching, digital collage, handmade kites, expanded painting, song, even explosives – their works share stories and negotiate the politics of the current moment.

Curators Elyse Goldfinch, Alexie Glass-Kantor (Artspace) and Scott Elliot (NAS) worked closely with each of the artists through the development of the exhibition during unique circumstances. Artists were selected in early 2021 and were due to present their works at Artspace that same year, but ongoing pandemic-induced delays and renovations of Artspace’s Gunnery building lead to the exhibition being shown a year later in the distinctive spaces of the NAS Gallery. Through it all, these artists have shown their capacity to take on challenges with resolve.

Please join co-curator Alexie Glass-Kantor with artists Chun Yin Rainbow Chan, Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen, Joe Wilson and Genevieve Felix Reynolds for a special walk-through of the 2022 NSW VAEF.

Image: 2022 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship Finalists. Photo: Tim Connolly