R & M McGivern Prize previous winners
The R & M McGivern Prize Prize is awarded every three years, for the painting that is the judged the most worthy by an expert panel.
2019 - Nadine Christensen
Hang in there, 2018, acrylic on sustainable farmed hoop pine with cedar stretcher.
The judges commented that the work 'was a technically accomplished painting that renders a collision of imagery, scale and painterly planes in a masterfully cohesive fashion. Christensen’s work reminds us that while life is fleeting and fragile there is hope in the midst of despair. The artwork showcases the artist’s affinity with spatial deconstruction and the existential plight of humanity.’
2016 - Rose Nolan
Rose Nolan, Big Words - QUOTE / UNQUOTE (double version) 2016
acrylic paint on cardboard , photography Matthew Stanton
Inspired by the provocative aesthetics of Russian Constructivism and associated with the Store 5 group of artists from Melbourne, Rose Nolan is a highly regarded mid-career artist who has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas since the 1980s.
The work, an acrylic painting on concertina cardboard, blurs the boundaries between painting, sculpture and architecture.
2012 - Rosslynd Piggott
Rosslynd Piggott, Night - 24 hours/Tremor
Piggott’s style is slow and deliberate, often using natural forms and systems as a starting point for painterly meditations. The winning painting depicts the same area of sky as recorded over a 24 hour period. The artist describes how the work forms “a tenuous time line across a falling and chaotic night sky. This painting aims not to illustrate these ideas, but to emanate them, in stillness and vibration.”
2009 - Celeste Chandler
Celeste Chandler, Untitled 5, series naked in the dark, 2009, oil on linen, 132 x 152.5cm
This work combines Chandler’s mastery of the brush with her interest in manipulating paint into human skin and the intangible connections and disconnections that exist between people.
2006 - Stephen Haley
Stephen Haley, United (but not reconciled), 2006, acrylic on canvas, 153 x 182cm
Haley’s work addresses itself to the issue of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Through incorporating a single-point perspective view and an aerial view of suburban Australia, the work alludes to the vantage points of two different cultures and to the tensions that persist on the road to reconciliation.
2003 - Martin King
Martin King, First Rain 11, 2003, pigment and wax encaustic on canvas, 153 x 153cm
In 2003 the inaugural R & M McGivern Prize was awarded to Martin King for his painting First Rain II, 2003. Inspired by his travels to remote Indigenous communities in the far north of Australia, the work depicts the coming of the rains to the harsh desert terrains of the continent’s interior.