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Auckland-based artist Caryline Boreham has won the prestigious $20,000 National Contemporary Art Award for 2021 for a mesmerising video work entitled Palmolive.
Announcing the award at Hamilton’s Waikato Museum today, judge Karl Chitham (Ngaa Puhi, Te Uriroroi) said, “this work is captivating.”
“The title conjures up notions of cleanliness, sanitisation and order – making our surroundings safe and keeping our loved ones healthy.
“The artist has chosen to document these everyday tasks in a way that makes them feel simultaneously magical, meditative and unrelenting.”
The work was chosen through a blind-judging process from 38 finalists, all of which are now on display at Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato until 28 November.
Chitham, who is Director of The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt, said that selecting prize-winners from the finalists was a difficult decision.
“The quality of works here is incredibly high. This is the most difficult judging process I’ve been through.”
Celebrating its 21st birthday this year following a cancellation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the award attracted entries from around New Zealand and overseas. Tompkins Wake, one of New Zealand’s leading law firms, and nationally-renowned architects Chow:Hill, have been its co-sponsors since 2014 and 2015 respectively.
The win came as a shock to Boreham who is currently unable to visit the exhibition due to the ongoing Alert Level 4 lockdown in Auckland.
“I’m stunned. This is such a surprise!” said Boreham via phone, “I’m actually speechless.”
In her artist’s statement submitted with the work, Boreham stated, “Home is the setting for the most intimate, celebratory, ritualistic and also unresolved, mundane and repetitive parts of our lives. Palmolive is a recreation of one of these moments.”
The awards announced today were:
2021 National Contemporary Art Award for $20,000 co-sponsored by Tompkins Wake and Chow:Hill:
Caryline Boreham for Palmolive, single channel video.
2021 Runner-up and winner of the $5,000 Hugo Charitable Trust Award:
Brett a’Court for Rua KÄnana and Pinepine Te Rika’s descent from Mt MaungapÅhatu, oil on prepared woollen blanket with canvas support.
2021 Friends of Waikato Museum $1,000 Merit Award winner:
D Milton Browne for Gaze, black and white photograph.
2021 Random Art Group $1,000 Merit Award winner:
John Guy Johnston for The Art of Value, acrylic paint and wax pastel on unstretched pinstripe suit material, bulldog clips.
The Campbell Smith Memorial People’s Choice Award, sponsored by the family of the late Campbell Smith, will be presented to the winner of the most votes by the visiting public just before the Award exhibition closes in November.
The finalists for the 2021 National Contemporary Art Award are:
Rua KÄnana and Pinepine Te Rika’s descent from Mt. MaungapÅhatu – Brett a’Court, Northland (Runner up, 2021 National Contemporary Art Award)
Nexus – Denise Batchelor, Northland
Palmolive – Caryline Boreham, Auckland (Winner, 2021 National Contemporary Art Award)
The Killing Chain – Brit Bunkley, Whanganui
Fruit Bowl IIII – Oliver Cain, Auckland
Equanimity (2021) – Trish Campbell, Auckland
Untitled – Alex Chalmers, WhangÄrei
Aletheia – Julia Christey, Hamilton
Concrete 2 – Ruth Cleland, Auckland
Joy Mountain – Natasha Cousens, Tauranga
Maelstrom – David Cowlard, Auckland
2021 – Antony Densham, Auckland
lab 20-10AB – Leslie Falls, Hastings
Hikoi rÄ- walk there – Fraser Findlay, Whanganui
ART – Stuart Forsyth, Wellington
No Meat And All Vege – Jacquely Greenbank, Christchurch
The genius loci of the chapel – Natalie Guy, Auckland
Solv No. 4 – Levi Hawken, Auckland
The Art of Value – John Guy Johnston, Auckland (Merit Award, 2021 National Contemporary Art Award)
Anatomy of a Stream – Paul V Johnston, Auckland
Sol 956 – Yoon Tae Kim, Auckland
Hope is the Thing with Feathers 2 – Rozana Lee, Auckland
Flagstaff Hill, April 2021 – Thomas Lord, Dunedin
The Incredible Lightness Of Being – Kaye McGarva, Havelock North
Gaze – D Milton Browne, Dunedin (Merit Award, 2021 National Contemporary Art Award)
La teu le vÄ – Leanne Morrison, Hastings
Late Model Mazda – Mark Purdom, Hamilton
Solo Exercise – Naomi Roche, Hamilton
Malaga – Raymond Sagapolutele, Auckland
Has It Ever Been More Tense Than Now: The Post Covid Apocalypse – Kyle Sattler, Tauranga
rorrim lartnec – Mark Soltero, Lyttelton
Companion Pieces – Natalie Tozer, Auckland
The Misunderstanding – May Trubuhovich, Auckland
Diasporas Children – Telly Tuita, Wellington
Blue Hours – Haihui Wang, Auckland
Wishing well – Cora-Allan Wickliffe, Auckland
Progress – Alex Wilkinson and Ben Wilson, Kihikihi
AhoTÄniko (connection) – Sheree Willman, Wellington
Details of the exhibition, which runs until 28 November, are available on the Waikato Museum website www.waikatomuseum.co.nz. All artworks in the exhibition are available for sale.
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