As announced on the evening of Friday 9 August at 7.30PM, the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize has been awarded at Geelong Gallery.
Continuing a long tradition of acquisitive award exhibitions, Geelong Gallery’s has awarded the winner of their 2024 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize to Bunnythorpe, New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist and musician, Travis MacDonald.
This is the first work by MacDonald to enter Geelong Gallery’s collection under the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, Travis MacDonald’s painting The top of the pond came out on top.
Geelong Contemporary Art Prize 2024
- When: Displayed from Saturday 10 August to Sunday 3 November 2024
- Where: Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong
- Price: Free entry
Stay up to date with what’s happening within the region’s art scene here.
View this post on Instagram
Armed with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts as completed in 2011, Travis MacDonald has been exhibiting since 2009. He has been awarded the Gary Grossbard Drawing Prize and the Lionel Gell Foundation Drawing Scholarship. His work was featured in the 2018 Melbourne Art Fair and in 2016, MacDonald’s work was exhibited in Painting. More Painting at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. He held his first solo exhibition at Niagara Galleries in December 2016. For his Geelong Contemporary Art Prize submission, MacDonald put forward an artwork that drew from his refined discipline of painting, presenting his distinct vision.
The top of the pond is an oil on linen creation that depicts a figure laying sprawled on the grass beside a tree and pond with a water fountain, spraying water in the background. Evoking emotions of relaxation and serenity, The top of the pond leans into Travis MacDonalds signature style of delivering understated pieces featuring subdued palettes and subjects that bridge the mundane to the absurd, offering an idiosyncratic take on the more tradition genres of figuration and landscape paintings. The soft green palette partnered with blurred edges of The top of the pond draw viewers into the landscape, capturing a memory and creating a narrative.
Of the award-winning painting MacDonald states, “The top of the pond is the final iteration of an ongoing study of public fountains, specifically the circular spraying pond model. They are an affordable solution to a public beautification project and citizen relaxation. No statues, just water from water, liquid and light. Light travels in straight lines, enters water, water follows a path of least resistance. A tricked-out Monet idea. The parable load of the fountain—of youth, of fertility/libido, knowledge, of rest and restlessness—is traversable. What squirts is a random digit generator, white noise. Like a number of radios stuck between stations, too much matter squeezed through a nozzle, a polite and mundane disorder. At Princes Park
on route to the studio, there are two of them. They turn them off at night in the winter.”
View this post on Instagram
These elements were found to be attractive to the judging panel. This years judges included José Da Silva, Director of UNSW Galleries, Jane Devery, Senior Curator, Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and Jason Smith, Director & CEO of Geelong Gallery who had the always tough task of defining the winning work.
Of the decision, the judges say, “‘We initially wish to thank the finalists in the 2024 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize. We acknowledge and honour their commitment to art practice and vital contributions to contemporary culture. It is a commonplace for selectors or judges to say that choosing one work from many as the recipient of an award is challenging, but it is frustratingly and heartbreakingly true! Having spent several hours looking at and discussing each work in the exhibition, we were unanimous in our emotional and intellectual responses to a final work. We were simultaneously intrigued and grateful that our individual feelings for that work were so aligned and in sync with each other. We are delighted to announce that the recipient of the 2024 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize is Travis MacDonald, for his painting The top of the pond.”
“We were all drawn into this picture’s enigmatic space, lyrical figuration, and beautifully refined aesthetic. It emanates a beguiling sense of calm, absorbing the viewer into a luminous, dynamic space of contemplation and possibility. The figure invites empathy and intimacy and evokes the peace found in solitary reverie and the restorative power of nature. Technically, the painting is quietly energised and deftly controlled through a confident yet still light, exploratory painterly mark and gesture. The top of the pond is a painting that asks us to give it time—to slowly meditate on what we are looking at and what feelings, memories, and desires it conjures. MacDonald’s painting is a romantic, emotive panacea—a thing of beauty—in a world flooded with images of the banal and the horrific.”
The statement signed off, “We congratulate all the shortlisted artists. The high calibre of works in this year’s prize and exhibition made the judging process both challenging and very rewarding. Collectively, they reflect the excellence and vitality of contemporary Australian painting.”
Andrew MacDonald and The top of the pond was shortlisted alongside 30 other artists for the $30,000 prize. The 2024 finalists included Peter Atkins, Stephen Benwell, Natasha Bieniek, Seth Birchall, Maggie Brink, Johnathon Bush, Eleanor Louise Butt, Fernando do Campo, Ella Dunn, David Egan, Louise Gresswell, Dana Harris, Euan Heng, Duain Kelaart, Dane Lovett, Viv Miller, Jan Murray, John Pastoriza-Pinol, Rosslynd Piggott, Kenny Pittock, Steven Rendall, Rachael Robb, Huseyin Sami, Georgia Spain, Ebony Truscott, Kate Vassallo, Trevor Vickers, Jake Walker, Amber Wallis and Louise Weaver.
All works, including The top of the pond will be displayed at Geelong Gallery from Saturday 10 August to Sunday 3 November 2024 in a free exhibition as supported by Dimmick Foundation.
Further information on the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize and Geelong Gallery’s illustrious exhibition program can be found here.
