Reconciliation Week - In conversation with Damien Shen

Newmarch Gallery is excited to bring you 'I'm Here', an interview with Damien Shen.

Damien Shen is a South Australian man of Ngarrindjeri and Chinese descent. As an artist he draws on both of these powerful cultural influences to create works of intense personal meaning. In using his artistic talent to share his story he aims to open the eyes of viewers to new ways of seeing Australian identity and Aboriginal art.

Interviewed by Pete Lindon, member of Prospect Arts Action Network, this is not to be missed.

Watch the full interview here

Prospect Portrait Prize Winners Announced

Jasmine Crisp is the winner of the Prospect Portrait Prize for 2019. 'Jasmine has presented a complex emotive portrait of one individuals journey, the trials and tribulations of being away from one’s home. In this tour de force of technique she references Sandro Botticelli’s classic Birth of Venus created in 1486, often referred to as the ‘Venus on a half shell’, which remains a symbol of idealised beauty and the perfection of form as conceived in Italy over 5 centuries ago. Jasmine has presented a complex emotional portrait which both indulges the viewers gaze and subverts it. She is at once beautiful and tragic; intimate and isolated. The portrait is also an evocation of humanities current state anxiety in regards the natural world. She is at once a part of it and apart from it'. Russell Kelty, Independent Judge, Assistant Curator, Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia. ​

Image: Venus is a Tourist (self portrait in Reykjavik), oil on canvas, 135 x 120cm.

Paul Whitehead is the Winner of the Payinthi Award, as voted by staff of City of Prospect. ​ Paul's work captures his father in the weeks before he passed.

​ Image: Paul Whitehead, Dad's Last Summer, oil on canvas, 76 x 56cm

Newmarch Gallery opens

It is with great excitement, years of planning and an incredibly creative community, that we celebrate the first day as Newmarch Gallery on 14 October 2019. Prospect Arts Action Network (PAAN), together with staff and the arts community open the doors to a state of the art, light filled and modern facility in the heart of Prospect, and the entry to Payinthi, our new home of City of Prospect. We look forward to you being a part of Newmarch Gallery!

The official opening of Newmarch Gallery was 5 December 2019.