2021 “USU CREATIVE AWARDS”
CURATED BY EMILY ROEBUCK
14 - 28 OCTOBER, 2021
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Open to all students of the University of Sydney (USyd), the USU Creative Awards is an amazing opportunity to showcase artistic works to peers, industry professionals and the local community at the USU’s contemporary art space, Verge Gallery.
The Creative Awards are divided into the categories Art, Music and Word with each category awarding the following prize amounts:
1st Prize $750
2nd Prize $350
People’s Choice $100
WINNERS 2021 USU CREATIVE AWARDS
Video: @mattsitas
Winners of the ART, MUSIC and WORD categories
ART
First prize - Bonnie Huang “西遊記 (Journey to the west)”
Second prize - Sophie Xiao Yue Zhou “home”
People’s Choice - Karen Banks “Ghost”
MUSIC
First prize - Chelsea Warner “It Be Like That”
Second prize - Gabrielle Ahn “Jang Hwa Soon”
People’s choice - Aleksandar Matic “Uber”
WORD
First prize - Zachary Picker “Fifteen”
Second prize - Francesca Edwards Rentsch “The Wolf”
People’s choice - Cleo Newling “The Cashier”
ART CATEGORY
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
MUSIC CATEGORY
SleepyUFO-2 Movements - Quartet For 1 Violin, 2 Viola, 1 Piano
Chelsea Warner-It Be Like That
SOUNDCLOUD PLAYLIST
WORD CATEGORY
Nicolas Astill - Digital Reflection
Francesca Edwards Rentsch - The Wolf
Bonnie Huang - The Ontology Of You And Me
Aylish Dowsett - You'll Find Her Heart In The Garden
SOUNDCLOUD PLAYLIST
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
BY EMILY ROEBUCK
Your artworks came to me as forms full of words used to describe works of your making. Your words sat against the stark white and entirely mundane piece of paper, and as black ink bled further into its small creases so too, I felt your intention sink deeper into me. I couldn’t help but notice that printing ink does something disconcerting to the clarity of words and the colour of an image. Colours flatten, they bleed out and fray harsh lines, a lack of ink fractures the image causing everything to pull slightly left. I felt resigned. Perhaps, I would not yet be privileged to understand the true quality of your work, at least when printed through an office printer.
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Olga Svyatova, I love you. I still love you, embroidery on calico, 150x74cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Peggy Tang, The Little Bliss on Hand, Ribbon Art, Ikebana, 16x12x11cm (x6), 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
So I try again, I change tactics and copy everything into a spreadsheet. Your words once again being held against the stark white and entirely mundane sheet. Clearer? Yes, but still not entirely true, as bright white light starts to play ticks with my eyes. What once was clear is suddenly multiplied, as one word falls on top of another and round edges get divided, shifting into tiny pixels that reflect off my eyes. Again your words are frayed, lost to the blinding white. Still, I cling to those pixels and to the corners of your text trying to perceive meaning.
Bronte Cormican-Jones, Teacup Reflections, dual screen video, 1280 x 720px, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Gregory Uzelac, Steamboat Willie, ink and watercolour on paper, 30x25cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Kristen Rhodes-Hasler, The Other Exhibition’, Photographic print on tracing paper, 2330 x 910mm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
L-R, Frank Lin, The House is Never Alone, graphite on paper,305x483mm, 2021. Rachel Feng ‘conda activate make cdDesktop/make/tf-pose-estimation/ ./start.sh’, video interactive screen, 79cm x 141cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Given a week and I am finally able to hold all that your words describe. It is heavier than I imagined. No longer totally flat, nor frayed and yet again, I place it against the stark white and entirely mundane. If I could remember the moment it all changed, I’d be inclined to say this was it. As stark white no longer absorbed, or blinded but truly let that which you made be seen. Here, I realised, that words merely cannot do justice, the materiality of your thoughts.
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Yinfeng Shen, The Silk Road 2020, silver, brass sculpture, 2020. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Sophie Xiao Yue Zhou, home, poetry, animation, multimedia, 1280 x 720px, 2021, Photography by Zan Wimberley.
I write to you, the artists, with the hope that I have perceived your thoughts justly. That I have not become another office printer. Your works—all unalike, speak so uniquely of each individual that I might as well call it a fool's errand to find a single, common thread connecting all the artworks. Yet, in this instance, I am that fool. You see, a fool more often than not is also a story teller. So, I began the story of this exhibition by telling you how I met your artwork. This was no accident on my behalf. I personally find it an all-together quite uninspired story, no grand adventures, witches or ghosts and if anything it’s slightly self indulgent. Yet, I see a similar, more refined story in each of your artworks. As each of your thoughts, observations and practices have arisen from somewhere close to home, from thoughts divulged in a similar rhythm as my own. Perhaps it is only indulging and telling a story, that I might explain how so many artists might produce so many thoughts from within, only, the five kilometre radius of their home.
Rachel Lai, JAY AND MARK WERE HERE IN 92, Mixed media installation: Photo book and sound, 30 x 30 x 1cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
L-R, Karen Banks, Ghost, Video, 1280x720px, 2021. Meng Yang Liu, Safe at Home, 3D visualisation, 5476 x 3080px, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Francesca Edwards Rentsch, Capital, acrylic on coins, 2 x 2cm (x12), 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
In my five kilometre radius was myself and the spreadsheet I told you about. From an ill formatted column of images, something subtle was emanating from my computer. The first word that came to me, seeing all your works together was soft. Maybe, describing something more to do with the colours than anything else. But soft is a great word, it is simple and inviting, gentle and quiet. It embodies the way these works slowly creep up on you, until you’re entirely too fond of them. It speaks to the resonance of each work, how they delicately absorb the empty gallery space. The artworks coax you into soft places; into meditative thought, into malleable memories, into a subconscious and sudden awareness of who you are. Soft is sensory, it evokes the feeling of the artwork, the airiness and sensitivity of approach. Yet, all of this is weighed down in an everyday reality. Entirely grounded in the stark white, the entirely mundane. From the front doorstep, to the corner of a far away room, or even a computer screen. Your works observe a reality close to home. Then through thought and materiality invite us to float softly somewhere just beyond that.
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Jennifer Van Ratingen, "Place" (Inspired by Stephen Shore)’, acrylic on canvas, 135x 92cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Bonnie Huang, 西遊記 (Journey to the west), glass sculpture, 20x20x20cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Where exactly we end up floating too, is entirely uncertain and changing. Trust me, I have ended up in many places, having many thoughts and written this many ways. But ultimately, I think floating, is an apt metaphor for the type of thinking, imbued within your artwork. You see, in floating we are given a somewhat infinite allowance of time. Hovering just above the reality of our thoughts. Anchored? Sure, but ultimately the thought of tethering yourself to something through a computer screen seems far more possible than impossible. I say you start somewhere close to home. Tethered by the mundane, but your artwork expands tangentially. Finding what is near and dear but never settles in that thought. In a way it's like finally looking through the window of your neighbours living room after dark. Physically you might be standing in front of something real, but everything looks like it's gone through an office printer. Shifted, frayed and fractured from the reality you think you know. It is disconcerting, to not exactly see yourself in the artwork, but see a reflection of your fears, your thoughts and processes. That is the power of these works, an undeniable and enduring introspection. An introspection that seems to just consume the gallery in a melancholic hum.
Keesha Field, Dregs, Found object, water, two timber sticks, projection with sound, 183cm w, 40cm h, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
USU Creative Awards, installation view, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Charlene Tink, The Final Plea, mixed media painting, 50.8 x 71.12cm, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Now, we’ve spent too much time thinking, floating in circles and home no longer feels comforting. Our perspective fractures, we no longer long to come home, nor long to stay still. We have considered all we can consider, observed every crevice, acknowledged every thought that passes by and allowed all the ink to be absorbed. I can’t help but ask how we might move forward? But perhaps that’s a thought for next year.
Emily Roebuck
Curator
(T-B), Stephanie Mantilla, Breaking the visual metaphor, video, 1080 x 720px, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.
Nishta Gupta, where is this cosmos that lies behind my eyes, video, 1280 x 720 px, 2021. Photography by Zan Wimberley.