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A Lower Hutt artist has won a $25,000 art prize for a tapestry of 120 individual drawings she describes as windows into her personal life.
Her winning work, The Visual World is Inexhaustible, is a collection of 120 paper drawings on graphite interwoven with steel wire, cascading down a wall and on to the floor. It was chosen from a pool of 463 entries nationwide and 77 finalists at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts’ Academy Galleries.
This year’s judge, head curator of international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Justin Paton, said Jones’ winning work kept him looking.
“It’s a cascading diary of 120 moments pulled from the flow of everyday life. It’s a work that seems curious about the world, and it makes us curious in turn. A kitchen sink, a black cat slinking by, a lumpy tumble of river stones, a dog looking dopily from a car window, a slice of landscape hanging in a rear-view mirror,” he said.
“Jones records all this and more using a constantly changing alphabet of graphite marks, lines, dashes, twists, gaps, knots, darks, and densities – a live drawing language which acknowledges that no one description can hold the world’s complexity.
“Though drawing is usually thought of as a way of bringing the world to order, Jones seems at least as interested in the gaps between things and the moments when we’re not quite sure what we’re seeing.”
Jones said the main point of the piece was to draw on “the fear of habitualisation - the conscious acceptance of daily life.
“It focuses on the ephemeral sensations and fleeting moments of our surroundings.
“Each drawing represents a window into my personal life, capturing seemingly mundane moments that are profoundly intimate. For instance, a drawing of a cat that used to visit my old flat holds memories and stories that highlight the habit of daily life. It’s a reminder to slow down and be present in these small yet significant moments.”
Jones said she drew as an act of meditation, “so thinking about the world around me and being in the world”.
Lower Hutt artist Ella Jones with her winning work, The Visual World is Inexhaustible, a collection of 120 individual drawings assembled as a tapestry.
Her work was “deeply inspired” by the late NZ artist Joanna Margaret Paul, “whose approach of being attuned to the world rather than just existing in it resonates deeply with me”.
One of Jones’ favourite drawings in her artwork was of the back of a chair, which she drew as a homage to a piece of Paul’s work.
“That, for me, is the centre of my piece ... as a way of really placing her kaupapa in the centre of my work,” Jones said.
Deciding what moments to draw as part of her work happened “organically”. “Some were just moments that I would think about often. Others just kind of presented themselves to me.”
Winning the award did not feel “quite real” yet, she said.
The artwork is made up of 120 individual drawings of mundane and intimate moments in Ella Jones' life.
“I almost didn’t apply because it felt like a long shot.”
When she became a finalist and read through the list of other finalists, she had “goosebumps” looking at the other artists she was grouped with.
“It was just such an honour to be a part of the exhibition, let alone to be the recipient of this year’s prize.”
The Parkin Drawing Prize exhibition will run from this Tuesday until September 8 at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
