VISUAL artist Mairin Briody has been named a finalist in Bendigo Art Gallery\u2019s biennial Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize for 2023.<\/p>\n
Pulling together. Falling apart. is a mass of dyed canvas, which has not been stretched in a traditional way, but attached to a bar and draped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been stuck on the question of what is painting in a world that feels like it’s falling apart?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels as if there is tension everywhere, and we\u2019re all still getting up, and going to work, but we all know we\u2019re hurtling towards a calamity. So, what is art and painting in that space?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going into the studio, trying to connect with how I’m feeling at the moment, and I can\u2019t bring myself to stretch a taut canvas across a stretcher bar again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just doesn’t feel that that\u2019s what the canvas wants, or what I want to do with it, so I allow the canvas to fall and to fold.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how I feel in myself; I want to fall and fold, and need to gather myself up again, then let myself go.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 900 artists entered the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize in 2023.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, Geelong Art Gallery director and CEO Jason Smith and Guy family member Penelope Wise shortlisted 36 finalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prize looks at painting in all sorts of different ways it can be expressed as a discipline,\u201d Briody said. \u201cI thought, if I was ever going to get into a prize, this would be the one I might get into.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have been selected to be a part of this show is winning. It\u2019s so affirming and exciting. To have my work in the Bendigo Art Gallery is enough as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n