SHARED HISTORY

Shared History will be exhibited in Dubai at the group Australian exhibition 'A Gift Of Colour', Mondo Arte Gallery, Mall of the Emirates [Yep, where the indoor ski slope is!], Dubai. The Australian Ambassador, Mr. Jeremy Bruer will open the exhibition on 8th November. This painting was inspired by a conversation I had with an Arab woman in Abu Dhabi last year. We were talking about one of my paintngs in my exhibition at the Cultural Foundation. This painting was called Histories. We spoke for about half an hour about how wonderful it would be if the world focused on the similarites between people rather than the differences. It got me thinking about the concept of shared history. I had many similar conversations with other visitors to my exhibition. These people came from all over the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe with some from Australia and the UK.

Well, the $10,000 Redland Art Award was announced last night. 52 paintings were hung out of 380 submitted. So, whilst I did not win I am delighted to be amongst the shortlisted. The Redland Art Gallery is a regional gallery overseen by the local Shire Council. Redland is only about 45 minutes drive south east from Brisbane.

Art prizes are an  'interesting' phenomena...that's all I'll say now! Some artists avoid them and I can understand why. However, it is a thrill to be shortlisted. For anyone reading this that does not understand the process; basically artists are asked to submit a digital image of the work they want to enter plus entry fee and sometimes other documents such as a cv. Someone preselects from the images and those chosen artists are asked to send the actual painting to the competition. All artists who enter pay the entry fee which is not refundable if an artist is not selected. There are still some competitions where artists send the actual work to the venue prior to selection. A preselection process may still [and more often than not] takes place. In this scenario the artist pays for the entry fee and the freight to and from the venue. This latter scenario is more expensive for the artist, but sometimes a photo can make a good painting look bad and a bad painting look good! Some art prizes are acquisitive which means the winning work becomes the property of the gallery or whatever.

Shared History Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm