City celebrates emerging artists

Media Release 14 October 2022

EAA

New and emerging artists have been celebrated as part of the City of South Perth’s annual Emerging Artist Award, held on Thursday 13 October at the South Perth Community Hall.

Now in its 20th year, the 2022 Emerging Artist Award – with its largest prize pool of $15,000 – is a vital part of the City’s cultural life and is open to all emerging artists in Western Australia.

This year’s Open Award winner Joe Frost earned the main $5,000 prize for his self-portrait, titled ‘diminishing returns’, which provided him with an opportunity to “reflect on the human experience and the seasonal challenges that force us to be resilient”.

Mayor Greg Milner congratulated Joe and all of this year’s winners and entrants.
“The City of South Perth is proud to showcase the work of emerging artists and provide this opportunity to share their talents with the wider community,” he said.

“It was very pleasing to have such a strong youth representation at this year’s awards – Joe was among a large group of artists under the age of 25 who made up half of our prize winners, including two students from Como Secondary College.

“We also received many entries from City of South Perth residents, with two being category winners.”

Having reviewed more than 120 entries, judges Stuart Elliot, Paola Anselmi and Kathleen Toomath were impressed by the variety of artwork mediums and encouraged by the strong works submitted by First Nations artists.

The City also acquired two artworks for its collection being Beauty and the Beast by Ben Hsu and Kulbardi by Zali Morgan.

The Emerging Artist Award Exhibition, curated by Artist/Director Ron Nyisztor, is now open to the public at the South Perth Community Hall until Saturday 22 October (closed Sunday 16 October).

Community members can also vote for their favourite artwork in the Soco Realty – People’s Choice Award ($750) to be announced after the exhibition on Wednesday 2 November.