Artists John Meade and Emily Karanikolopoulos have been awarded the $250,000 Southern Way McClelland Commission 2018 for their elegant sculpture, Love Flower, to be installed in September 2019.
The monumental and enchanting new sculpture will be sited along the Peninsula Link freeway in Melbourne’s South East as part of a unique and award-winning commitment to public art. It will replace Gregor Kregar’s sculpture Reflective Lullaby which is located on the Cranbourne Road site, on the Langwarrin exit ramp close to McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery.
The Southern Way McClelland Commission received 65 submissions from local, interstate and international artists. The commission judging panel was Lisa Byrne, Director, McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, Maudie Palmer AO, former inaugural Director of Heide Museum of Modern Art and TarraWarra Museum of Art; and sculptor Lisa Roet.
John Meade was born in Ballarat in 1956 and currently lives and working in Melbourne. His practice draws relations, often humorous and unexpected, between the metaphysical and surreal in the experience of contemporary life and domestic culture.
He studied Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, before completing a Masters of Arts at RMIT and a PhD in Fine Art at Monash University. He lectures at Monash University and the University of Melbourne. He has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, with his work held in major private and public collections throughout Australia. He is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.
Emily Karanikolopoulos is an Australian artist who is a teacher and practitioner of the Japanese floral arrangement art of Sogetsu Ikebana. She is an active member of the Ikebana community of Australia, and she has attained the highest possible Ikebana accreditation outside Japan. She has exhibited in the Sogetsu Ikebana Exhibition, Shinjuku Takashimaya in 2014, and has been awarded three first places in the Melbourne International Flower Show Shop Window competition.
For more information, visit: www.mcclellandgallery.com for details.
Image: John Meade and Emily Karanikolopoulos (supplied)