Anna Glynn has won the Noosa Regional Gallery’s 2016 Noosa Art Award for her video work Cane. The Jaspers Brush (NSW) artist will take home $10,000 in prize money for her work, which is on display at Noosa Regional Gallery until 26 June.
Referencing the underlying primal narrative of fire and man within the landscape, the video work is a meditative exploration of land and place: the ephemeral, the fleeting layers of time and the past and present overlapping within a landscape transformed by man.
The burning of the cane fields is a family affair,” said Glynn. “A tradition a way of life and a marker of the change of seasons demonstrating that fire is much more than an exothermic chemical reaction.”
“In this work I continue in my investigation of the Australian landscape recording a current agricultural practice – filmed on location at Goodwood Island in Northern New South Wales, a low lying island in the Clarence River Estuary.”
Featuring music by Ben Cosgrove, Cane was selected from entries across the nation and the Sunshine Coast region, addressing the theme: reflecting the unique character of modern Australia’s coastal and hinterland environments, both urban and natural. All entries endured the rigours of pre-selection, with a shortlist of 64 artists selected to contend for the $10,000 prize.
“I like the ambition of this work, the way in which it speaks to the theme of modern Australian landscape and an environmental Armageddon, that journeys from the microcosm of a single fire to a potential cataclysmic event,” said 2016 Noosa Art Award Judge, Louise Martin-Chew. ‘The transformation inherent in fire is captured as the moving image work develops, and notes early the dwarfing of humanity at the hands of a natural force.”
“The trajectory of the fire is evocatively captured, the cataclysmic fireworks, the accompanying soundscape, and then the denouement, bringing to mind the cycle of day and night, the trajectory of other natural weather events, the human journey itself.”
Anna Glynn is a multimedia artist who works with a palette of painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, writing, music, sound, installation, film making, moving image, digital animation and theatre. Her art-practice has been inspired by working and collaborating internationally exploring different cultures and new materials.
Her work often references our natural world and expresses curiosity and wonderment, investigating the connection between humans and nature, land and place, ideas and the ephemeral.
The 2016 Noosa Art Award Finalist Exhibition is currently on display until 26 June. For more information, visit: www.noosaregionalgallery.com.au For more information anout Anna Glynn, visit: www.annaglynn.com for details.
Image: Anna Glynn – photo by Sharon Hickey