Regional Arts are in such an exciting place right now. I recently attended Cementa in Kandos with an incredible array of artists connecting with each other and sharing ideas, responding to place in a more open way. It really feels like the regions are where the frontier of contemporary art is at right now.
Australia’s richest regional drawing prize is held every two years in Grafton on the banks of mighty Clarence River in northern NSW. It’s a super special night for the town's regional gallery where local Elder Aunty Jannay Daley welcomed us to the sacred traditional lands of the Bundjalung, Gumbay-nggirr and Yaegl for the opening of the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award at the JADA Gala
Since settlement, Grafton has become renowned for its splendid jacaranda trees which when in full bloom are a vision to behold. Apparently, after early consultation with the trees, the local authorities declared the official 2024 Jacaranda season to be from 18 October through to 10 November so so the opening was a bit early and the blossoms had copped a beating in the storm I drove down through but the Friends of the Galley were in high spirits.
The Friends were originally called the Jacaranda Art Society when they started back in 1961 on a mission to establish a contemporary art collection for the Grafton region. The way they decided to do this was through an annual acquisitive art competition held in conjunction with the blooming trees and the attendant Jacaranda Festival.
Drawing really is the foundation of all art practice and this year there were 560 entries from all over Australia. Only 65 artists were selected as the exhibiting finalists and the works are wide ranging.
When I visited the gallery in February I saw another amazing drawing exhibition - the Dobell Drawing Prize - which really extended my notion of what drawing is - from video to ash, charcoal, ink and watercolour to fibre sculpture. And likewise the JADA exhibition pushes the boundaries of the very concept of drawing. There are works in neon, animation, 12-gauge shot, and actual artist’s blood!
Many of the finalists expressed the anxiety that many of us feel in this unsettling time - in the midst of a climate emergency, with wars raging all around the world, fake news, disinformation, and the rise of inhuman artificial intelligence. But their work helps us navigate the complexities of the human experience. And it has an important role in reflecting back to us who we are in this day and age.
Judge Michelle Newton, Deputy Director at Sydney’s Artspace, had the unenviable job of selecting the winner.
“The 2024 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (JADA) captures the quality and diversity of drawing by a wide range of artists across Australia. Many of the artists in the exhibition have taken an interdisciplinary approach to the medium with an experimental spirit that challenges our understanding of what drawing is and what it can be. Laith McGregor’s work is a prime example of this. There is something very primary and dynamic in his mark-marking and the way he builds up the surface. His drawing creates an atmosphere charged with emotion, blurring traditional portraiture with abstraction. Similarly, Nix Francis’s work plays with light, texture and bodily materials, drawing on personal narratives to create a sense of intimacy.”
2024 JADA winner Laith McGregor was stunned. He said he felt he had achieved a breakthrough with his work and was rewarded with $35,000 in prize money.
Based in Myocum on Bundjalung Laith explained:
“Drawing has remained a constant, and integral part of human discourse. The line is used to map, guide, express and converse, it has maintained a sense of the uncanny, by creating potential to be something that it is not, with seemingly unlimited potential. But where will it take us from here?”
The answer might be found in the $5,000 Early Career Award winner Nix Francia for their drawing ‘Love at Midnight (blood edition)’. Nix is from Marayong on Darug Country and used their own blood as medium.
“It struck me to experiment with the use of my blood as medium, and place direct symbolism of my love onto paper, to represent my own sacrifice and devotion to who I am fated to be with."
Alas, Nix told me that she had since broken up with her loved one.
In a separate gallery space there's another exhibition by Northern Rivers artist Marion Conrow, called ‘Immersive Works’ featuring four projection sculptures that span her practice from the last two decades. Marion is a VJ (like DJ only with videos rather than discs).
Both shows are on until December 8 at the Grafton Regional Gallery.
The above work has this poem by Herrera's grandfather written in Spanish around the border:
“I met you to lose you, friend. I met you to cry for you, I met you to mourn my life.
I met you to say goodbye”.