On Friday 11 December, the National Art School celebrated the achievements and success of our students through awarding of prizes and scholarships. We would like to congratulate the award recipients for their hard work, and thank our lecturers and technicians for their outstanding dedication and commitment to each and every student.

All of the prizes and scholarships awarded have been generously provided by our benefactors and sponsors, and we also thank you for your support.

Major Awards

Anne Pata Memorial Drawing Award
Whimbrel Wilson & Jane Alexander

Bird Holcomb Foundation Scholarship
Taylor Steel

Mark Henry Cain Memorial Travel Scholarship
Luke Kennedy

East Sydney Doctors Scholarship
Madeleine Feist & Sylvie Veness

Clitheroe Foundation Scholarship
Ellen Wickens

National Art School Aboriginal Art Centre Internship – Tikjkala
Clementine McIntosh

National Art School Aboriginal Art Centre Internship – Ernabella
Lauren O’Connor

John Olsen Prize for Drawing
Em Ingram-Shute

Derivan Award for Excellence
Noah Bennett

Troy Quinliven Exhibition Award
Daniel Bodey

Richard Lucchese Abstract Painting Prize
Katharine Francis

Joel Corrigan Memorial Photography Award
Lucy King

Art History

Brandon Trakman Prize
Em Ingram-Shute and Sadhbha Beth Cockburn

Ceramics

Sabbia Gallery Exhibition Prize
Michele Edinger

Parkers Sydney Fine Art Ceramic Award
Alyssa Clemson

Kil.n.It Award
Michele Edinger

N.E. Pethebridge Award
Lucy Rushton

Matilda Kubany-Deane Memorial Prize
Yul Scarf

Drawing

Parkers Sydney Fine Art Drawing Award
Aliki Yiorkas

John Olsen Prize for Drawing (Highly Commended)
Clementine McIntosh

Jasco Sketchbook Prize
Katharine Francis

Dora Dreyfus Drawing Award
Kim Bennett

Painting

Parkers Sydney Fine Art Painting Award
Caitlin Evans

Derivan Award for Mixed Media
Nicole Fern

Parkers Sydney Fine Art Framing Award
Daniel Bodey

aMBUSH Gallery
Suzanna Vangelov

John McCaughey Prize (Perpetual)
Trenna Austen – A Desperate Ride on a Terrible Course

Sydney Olympic Park Residency Award – Painting
Tara McIntosh

Photomedia

Kayell Australia Photography Award
Nell Thompson

Printmaking

Artscene Printmaking Prize
Svetlana Prokhorova

Artscene Printmaking Prize
Aliki Yiorkas

Parkers Sydney Fine Art Printmaking Award
Roman Giuffre

Ellen Lee O’Shaughnessy Printmaking Award
Isabella Kennedy

Sydney Olympic Park Residency Award – Printmaking
Lorelei Sneyd

Megalo Studio and Gallery Residency Award – Printmaking
Eliza Gwynne, Claire Welch, Fergus Berney-Gibson

Sculpture

Parkers Sydney Fine Art Sculpture Award
Arushi Nayar

Sculpture by the Sea Prize
Em Ingram-Shute

Dr John Vallance Prize for Sculpture
Bronwyn Vaughan

KNULP Exhibition Prize
Maria Alvarado Loukianova

Barnes Prize for Sculpture
Jane Alexander

Sydney Olympic Park Residency Award – Sculpture
Charlotte Simpson and Hannah Wilson

Open Awards

NAVA Ignition Prize for Professional Practice
Yul Scarf

Studio W doubleyou Exhibition Prize (1-2 Award Recipients)
Noah Bennett and Nina Radonja

Harvey Galleries Award
Casey Chen (ceramics)
Trenna Austin (painting)
Nic Fern (painting)
Finnegan McGrath (painting)
Sophia Yong (painting)
Katika Schultz (printmaking)
Giorgia McRae (sculpture)

ArtsHub

In a late announcement on Friday, NSW Minister for the Arts Don Harwin announced that the National Art School (NAS) had received over $18 million, directed to upgrades and critical maintenance at the heritage-listed site.

The news comes in the wake of cuts that have peppered arts education institutions nationally this year.

CEO and Director Steven Alderton said: ‘This announcement is a fantastic and uplifting way to end this difficult year, and to celebrate the National Art School’s upcoming anniversaries.

‘Our historic Darlinghurst Gaol site is one of the most important in Sydney and this funding allows us to undertake crucial restoration and repair work, as well as expand our public engagement with the new museum and gallery and upgraded Cell Block Theatre,’ he said.

Read the full article through the link below.

Article by Linda Morris

Sydney Morning Herald

Multimillion-dollar renovations to the heritage-listed home of the National Art School will begin in the new year, repairing the 200-year-old hand-hewn sandstone walls, wings, and walkways of the former Darlinghurst Gaol.

The $18 million facelift was announced by the Minister for Arts Don Harwin at the end of year graduate students’ award ceremony on Friday night and welcomed by the art school as an “uplifting way” to end a difficult year.

Read the full article through the link below.

Image: Steven Alderton, NAS Director and CEO; Guy Maestri, artist and NAS alumnus. Photo: Louie Douvis.

We are pleased to announce some changes to the National Art School Board.

Carolyn Fletcher

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to our outgoing Chair, Carolyn Fletcher AM. Under Carolyn’s leadership, NAS was acknowledged as a State Significant Organisation and awarded NSW Government funding. This achievement alone reset the course of NAS’ future in addition to securing a 45-year lease. Carolyn has also been instrumental in guiding NAS’ masterplanning process to build on our 100-year legacy and ensure NAS remains Australia’s leading independent art school attracting the best and brightest of the next generation. Carolyn has actively supported NAS alumni at our Sydney Contemporary Art Fair stand, in addition to individual artists such as Georgia Saxelby. It is with immense gratitude that we thank Carolyn for her time with the National Art School.

Ross McDiven

We would like to welcome Ross McDiven as our new Chair. Ross has close to 50 years’ experience in the Australian property sectors and is a former Chairman and Chief Executive at Brookfield Multiplex Group. Over a career of 46 years with the company he was instrumental in its growth to become an international property and construction entity.

Ross was a leading figure in the emergence of Multiplex Limited as a public company in 2003 and negotiations that saw the company successfully acquired by Brookfield Asset Management in 2007.

Since retiring from Multiplex, Mr McDiven has been appointed to a number of advisory committee positions in the property and construction industry.

Brooke Horne

Brooke Horne has resigned his position on the NAS Board. Brooke has been Instrumental in developing a long-term philanthropy strategy for the National Art School and has been invaluable in fostering new networks with NAS. Drawing on his experience as Co-founder and Director of Philanthropy of The Equality Campaign, the lead organisation for ‘Yes’ in the 2017 Marriage Equality Survey, Brooke served as Chair of NAS’ Fundraising and Development Subcommittee.

Successfully steering the school’s efforts to establish the NAS Foundation in addition to personally supporting NAS students and alumni’s practice. I would like to both acknowledge and thank Brooke for his enduring commitment to NAS and supporting pathways to ensure our financial sustainability.

Andrew Muston

Welcome to Andrew Muston who will be joining the NAS Board. Andrew is the Head of Wholesale and Family Office Distribution at Roc Partners. Prior to joining Roc Partners, Andrew held capital raising roles at Contango Asset Management, QVG Capital and Totus Capital.

Andrew serves on the board of the Scots College Foundation, Evolution of the Foundation Committee for St Vincent’s Curran Foundation and Atelier Advisory Council for the Art Gallery of NSW.

Andrew holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney and is completing his Certified Investment Management Analyst® from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

– Steven Alderton, NAS Director and CEO

For one of their assessments in our Art History & Theory elective The Object Sensorium: Material Culture in Context, students were tasked with recording a 5-minute biography on an object of their choice.

Using one of the five senses (touch, smell, taste, sound, or sight) as an investigative frame, students analysed of one aspect of their object. Potential aspects explored include use/function, history, production, design, material features, aesthetic properties, collection, consumption, display and more.

Tune in to some of the brilliant responses below.

Images (top to bottom, left to right): Clove Orange Pomander – “Pomander: clove-studded orage” by Pille – Nami-nami [licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]; Tea Bowl – Photo by Katrina Smith; Swiss Army Knife – “Victorinox ‘Swiss Army Knife’ Climber” by CapCase [is marked with CC0 1.0]; Chocolate – public domain; Music Box – “13_Trip03” by anyajew [licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]; Sugar – “Wooden Spoon With White Sugar / Weißer Zucker” by wuestenigel [licensed with CC BY 2.0.)]; Apple Pie – “homemade American apple pie” by invisible_helicopter [licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0].

Article by Chloe Mandryk

A Rich Life AU

The National Art School, fondly referred to as NAS, is welcoming art lovers back onto its historic grounds in Sydney for their first public exhibition since March. A graduate exhibition such as this is an excellent opportunity to experience a range of mediums and concepts – for curiosity and collecting – in one place.

Read the full article through the link below.

Image: Lucy Rushton, City of Vases III, earthenware, underglaze and ceramic stain, 13 x 19 x 8 cm. Photo: Peter Morgan

On December 3 the Cell Block Theatre will host Site and Sound: NASxCON, the culmination of a collaborative creative project between NAS sculpture students and improvisation students at the Con, using a dialogue of music and art to improvise original works. This remarkable exchange has sparked positive connections for the students of both schools during a year that kept people apart. NAS is proud to present the results of their combined inspiration. Sculpture lecturer Dave Horton explains how the project happened.

This unique creative collaboration between two art institutions began in July 2020, with 15 second-year sculpture students from the National Art School and 15 improvisation students from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The Con students each created an improvised piece of music which they sent to a second-year NAS sculpture student, who improvised a sculptural work in response. Images of the sculptures were sent back to each music student, who continued to improvise around their original music. This dialogue could go between the two students as many times as they wanted until the due date for the works in October.

When the project started, NAS and the Con were not open to the public due to Covid, so the students had to communicate remotely. They got to meet in person in October, when the Con students came to NAS to play their improvised music among the artworks in the sculpture studio. A final performance will take place in the Cell Block Theatre at NAS on 3 December.

NAS Sculpture Lecturer Dave Horton, who instigated the project, talks about how it happened.

Dave: This improvisation project, which we started in July, began with a chance meeting in 2019 with Kevin Hunt, head of improv at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Kevin and I met at Eveleigh Works where he improvised music on anvils with blacksmith tools. It was amazing. Once I found out what his position was at the Con, I pitched the idea to him and he was keen.

NAS students in steel and metalwork are improvising a work in response to the piece of music they’ve been given. That means they’re not preconceiving an outcome, not designing anything or making sketches or models, they’re going straight into the material. Each decision informs the next decision until they get something that approximates that sense of the music.

So you’re showing them how to deconstruct the music?

We listen to it and I get them to make two columns: factual, so that might be high here, low there, fast, slow, lyrical, spacious, that sort of thing; and emotional, like is there a melancholic feel in the music, what are the aural facts giving us? Then they get to choose how they want to respond. Some students are quite prescriptive and really think about the timing and rhythms and the melody, all that sort of stuff; some are making a piece that infers more of the emotional content.

Do you have a connection to music?

I play a lot of music as an amateur, a hobbyist, but I did my Masters on the relationship between music and sculptural form, so I’ve got a background in how to do it.

When you introduced the idea to the students were they keen?

Very keen. I think they liked idea of collaborating with another artform. We’re so visual art-centric here but there’s a whole lot happening in other institutions which is still a form of artmaking. To engage with other practitioners in another artform is pretty refreshing.

They also like the idea that they’re exchanging the sculpture for the music, so they gift the sculpture to the music student, and they get the original piece of music in a recorded form, which is just for them. So it’s not just doing an exercise, I think they appreciate that this is for someone else.

The due date of the work is October 13. We have done the course work on it, but now their work on it is extra-curricular. It’s finding time to jump into the workshop here and complete the works between their other classes, with an ongoing dialogue with me but also with the Con students.

So the students keep responding to each other’s work?

Yes it’s a dialogue, going back and forth.

How many times?

It’s up to them, but they’re being encouraged to keep it going. So any changes in the sculpture they show the Con student who then keeps improvising their music in response. Hopefully it’s not an overbearing dialogue but takes on a natural conversational quality.

The students from the Con and NAS also have to keep journals, documenting their progress and the different incarnations the music and sculpture takes on.

How has it been compared to your expectations?

Pretty good. It’s always a mix. Some people can handle improv, some can’t, they need to have that element of control. So for the students that handle improv very well, they’ve got good results and have been able to experiment and play. Some of the students who are perhaps a bit more design oriented are not as successful.

At the moment the works are in a developmental stage, the metal surfaces are still not honed. The surface is not an arbitrary thing, you need to consider it – is it a colour, is it painted or are you going to allow the natural material to shine through? You’ve got to make those decisions.

Any students who have struggled at first then had a breakthrough?

It’s probably the case for all of them, because you’re introducing a whole art program at this point in second year that is a completely different way of working. It’s like working without a net, you can’t just be workmanlike, you have to be awake to what’s happening, and you end up with things you never expected to make. Even psychologically making that shift is difficult for any student so I think they all struggle with that but then the penny drops and they’re away.

It’s been going on for six weeks. It started with me doing a presentation at the Conservatorium about sculpture to their students, talking about the nature of space in sculpture, and the movement from figuration to abstraction. We also Zoomed it to our students back here, but their students got to understand more about sculptural context.

You’re encouraging them to have a dialogue, is there an end to it?

October 13 is the due date for the project. What we were hoping before Covid was there would be a performance in the Cell Block Theatre, with students from the Con performing their pieces, not just solo but with groups, quintets or quartets, and that’s the moment when the exchange is made. We will also try and show the visuals on screen so there’s music and image at the same time, but that’s still to be decided.

Is this a one off?

I want it to be ongoing, I think it’s enlivened this part of the course. One of the best things about the steel sculpture program is you can make a sculpture really quickly but it’s also the worst thing about it as well. It’s easy to make something that looks like a sculpture but has nothing going for it. This is a way of focussing the students to not just make something self-referential or that just looks like a sculpture.

What are music students getting out of it?

Exposure to a different form of creative expression they hadn’t considered before, understanding of sculpture as a temporal artform not just static form. One of the things I explained to them is how if you’re moving around a sculpture it’s changing, like a moving image, therefore it’s a temporal engagement, just like music.

I think this would work with a whole range of things – a physics department at a university could make an amazing contribution to a school like NAS. I think art institutions should do more of this, rather than be inward focussed. There’s a whole world out there and heaps of specialised knowledge that can be used for what we do.

NAS Director and CEO Steven Alderton discusses the repercussions of proposed cuts, and in the wider context of Australian visual arts education.

This has been an extremely difficult year for the arts in Australia, with the creative industries hard hit by COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions. But 2020 isn’t over yet. The Australian National University has announced proposed cuts to its highly respected School of Art and Design, while only last month Griffith University announced proposed cuts to the Queensland College of Art.

Like Griffith, where the cuts hit the college’s printmaking and jewellery studios, as well as photography and interactive media, ANU is targeting the furniture, jewellery and object studios, all craft and design disciplines that require specialist equipment and staff, as well as the animation and video program at a time when in-depth tertiary digital media education is crucial for Australia’s future creative professionals.

In July, the University of NSW announced the merger of its single-school UNSW Art and Design faculty into a six-school faculty with the Built Environment and Arts & Social Sciences faculties; the Art and Design faculty’s dean, Ross Harley, left that month.
Universities have suffered greatly during the pandemic this year, however the cuts to art schools are short-sighted and have been widely condemned. The loss of these facilities and the jobs of highly skilled lecturers and technicians cannot be regained and harms the Australian arts community and our international reputation.

After graduating from QCA in Brisbane 30 years ago, I became director of Sydney’s National Art School in 2017, one of only two remaining independent tertiary art schools in Australia. Our independence allows us to maintain intense, hands-on studio-based learning and expand our resources, such as the recent announcement of our new National Centre for Drawing.
According to UNESCO, creativity and innovation have become the true wealth of nations in the 21st century. In October 2020, Australia’s Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research said cultural and creative activity contributed $115.2 billion to Australia’s economy in 2017–18.

Reducing resources and staff at tertiary art schools further erodes Australia’s ability to support and strengthen the creativity, inspiration and innovation that is essential for our economy and society into the future, and to share our vibrant artistic culture with the world.

The most effective way to develop raw artistic talent is with a solid and independent foundation of education taught by experts with dedicated facilities. These proposed cuts are Australia’s loss, not just another blow for art students and teachers.

Steven Alderton is the Director and CEO of the National Art School in Sydney.

Image: NAS Director Steven Alderton and Head of Drawing Maryanne Coutts in front of Building 25, which will become the new Drawing Gallery in 2021, part of the National Centre for Drawing. Photo: Peter Morgan.