By LINDA HERRICK
After last year's furore over a winning artwork of beer crates and home brew, a painting likened to a "huge bright vagina" has won this year's $10,000 Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award.
Aucklander Rohan Wealleans, 26, received the award last night for his painting To the Moon and Back at a gala presentation at the Waikato Museum of Art and History in Hamilton.
The award judge and curator, Tobias Berger, who runs the Artspace gallery in Auckland, said he chose Wealleans out of 250 entrants because "I was just attracted to this huge bright vagina", which he perceived in the work made of paint and pins.
"All these layers of paint made me think about time and sexuality ... art and sex being some of the oldest pursuits given to humankind."
Berger also said he thought To the Moon and Back made reference to historically significant paintings of women's private parts, such as Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du Monde (The Origin of the World).
Last year's winner of the award, David Stewart, was roundly criticised for his entry, which consisted of six beer crates full of home brew.
Stewart was a solo dad and former plasterer. Wealleans is a masters graduate from Elam School of Fine Arts and last year won the Mt Eden Young Artist Award in the painting category.
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