New art awards announced at sculpture exhibition

'Tuitagaloa Rongo' by artist, Fatu fe'u, towers over a visitor on the driveway to the Quarry at The Sculpture Park at Waitakaruru Arboretum. Photo / Sarah Ivey

A new range of environmental art awards has been launched at an old quarry in Waikato, which has been reconfigured as an open-air display venue for New Zealand sculptors.

The Ebbett Prestige Environmental Art Awards were launched at E:Scape Sculpture in the Landscape 2011 exhibition which had just opened at the Waitakaruru Arboretum and Sculpture Park, east of Hamilton.

The awards were introduced to help support New Zealand artists, who took professional and financial risks, to create their works and bring them to the public.

E:Scape 2011, which runs from March 20 until June 6, showcased the works of 34 established and emerging New Zealand artists and featured 44 sculptures.

The awards attracted 16 entries and three receive seed funding of $1000 and to be included in E:Scape 2011.

Award recipients were Waikato artist Stuart Bridson, artist Lee Harrop, formerly of Auckland and now living in Australia, and Charlotte Parallel, an emerging performance/multi-media/sculptural artist from Dunedin.

- NZPA