Artereal Gallery is excited to announce that artist Stevie Fieldsend, has won the Award for Sculpture category in the 2022 North Sydney Art Prize.

The North Sydney Art Prize is a major biennial arts event showcasing some of the best in contemporary art from across Australia.

This year’s exhibition features over 110 artworks displayed across the grounds of the historic Coal Loader site.

Open daily 14 May – 29 May, 10am – 4pm.

In response to the curatorial theme, selected artworks explore sustainability and the environment with many addressing the impacts of climate change and consumerism, as well as responding to the inspiring natural and industrial elements of the site and surrounds.

About the winning work, ‘Still (once trees)’ Fieldsend writes:

‘Burnt, truncated telegraph poles are barely standing at the edge of a local road; the Black Summer fires have made their own memorial. I recovered them from the Lake Conjola area on Dharawal and Yuin country close to my regular holiday campsite after the scene was reduced to a blackened still-life nearly two years ago. No longer able to convey power, telecommunications and light,
what remained of the poles bore witness to an underlying breakdown in how we respond to our country, the global climate crisis and each other.

‘Still (once trees)’ reminds us of the destruction that raged over
Australia in 2019/20. In this space it becomes another memorial; contained, somewhat displaced but asking us to be present with it on an intimate level. Viewers can also make associations between the coal loader (coal deposits once were ancient forests) to provide power to marine vessels and that of telegraph poles (once trees) carryingpower to local communities.

The title speaks to the stillness of death, the stillness and silence of country after the fires, and also to a possibility of resilience.’

Image:
Stevie Fieldsend
‘Still (once trees)’