2010 Taranaki Art Awards

It's time to get your entries in for Opunake’s 2010 Taranaki Art Awards, a highlight of Taranaki’s creative calendar this spring.  Formerly known as the Taranaki Art Review, the annual awards are a national competition offering an opportunity for artists to exhibit and sell their work, with the added bonus of a $10,000 prize pool.

The awards are divided into seven categories:

• Painting,
• Rural Taranaki - must reside in Taranaki
• 3D - sculpture in any media
• Watercolour,
• Fibre Art,
• Toi Tu Taranaki - Toi Tu Taranaki is the new name of the Aotearoa award, sponsored by Tui Ora Ltd & Parininihi Ki Waitotara Trust.  Defined as ‘How Taranaki sees Aotearoa’, the award invites new, emerging and established artists to take a look at Aotearoa thorough a distinctively Taranaki lens – to say something of where they live, what they do and who they are in a way that is filtered by the prominence of Taranaki in our shared stories.
• Photography.

The Taranaki Art Awards Committee are pleased to announce the judges for this year, Darcy Nicholas and Mary-Jane Duffy.   

Raised in Waitara, Taranaki, Darcy Nicholas is a leading contemporary Maori painter, sculptor, writer, curator, event manager and commentator on art.  Darcy has exhibited in Canada, USA, Japan, Britain, Africa, France and India, and has been part of international touring shows throughout Britain, Australia and Europe. His work is held in private and public collections in many countries. In 1984 he won a Fulbright Award to study American Indian and African American art and movements, and in 2005 he won the Creative Wellington Award.   In 2010 he was awarded a Queens Service Order for his work in Museums. Darcy is currently General Manager of Community Services for Porirua City and is also responsible for Management of Pataka, Porirua Museum of Arts and Cultures. 

Mary-Jane Duffy co-directs the Mary Newton Gallery in Wellington with Paula Newton.  She formerly worked in museums and public galleries in Timaru and Wellington.  She is a writer of essays and poems, and also teaches on the Creative Writing Programme at Whitireia Community Polytechnic.

Their collective experience will be vital when faced with the daunting task of picking the winners.

The Awards ceremony is on Friday 29 October and offers a great night of entertainment, diverse NZ artwork and a chance to meet the artists.  Be sure to mark this date in your diaries.  The Taranaki Art Awards Exhibition will be on display 10am-5pm daily, from 29 October – 6 November at Sandfords Event Centre, Opunake.