Mysterious art wins

Two artworks that kept demanding the attention of the 2006 Hawke's Bay Review selectors scooped the $3000 ASB supreme award for their makers.
On Friday night Philip Baker and Michael Hawksworth were announced as this year's joint winners, Baker for his acrylic on canvas painting Working end, and Hawksworth for his ink-on-paper freehand drawing entitled A putative "sun" produced by artificially dilated gnomon.
Selectors Louis Le Vaillant, Auckland War Memorial Museum applied arts curator, and Philip Clarke, Objectspace director, were delighted to see so many different kinds of art entered in the annual review and made their selections for the exhibition to represent that wide range. The winners were chosen for "speaking" to them in terms of a strong emotional quality.
Baker's painting was a small work with great presence, they said, compelling the viewer to consider its meanings. Hawksworth's piece also had presence, they said, with plenty of mystery as well.
Baker described his work as an image of consequences. "It's about the creative painting process and its associated freedoms."
Hawksworth, who won the Mary Vigor Brown Trust popular choice award for a piece he entered in 1998, said he liked the idea that people might look at his work and think outside their normal reality.
One good thing about winning the award meant more people would take a second look at it.
"If your have too clear an idea of where you are going with art, doing it becomes a chore, it's good if it continues to be an adventure."
* Hawke's Bay Review - Hawke's Bay Exhibition Centre, Hastings, until Sunday, November 19.