This long-standing fellowship opportunity originated in 1900 as the NSW Travelling Art Scholarship. Today, the partnership between Create NSW and Artspace continues the commitment to nurturing emerging visual artists, with the current fellowship now in its 27th year at Artspace.
The 2024 exhibition will be presented at The Gunnery, Woolloomooloo following the NSW Government’s transformation of the heritage building to become Sydney’s newest contemporary art gallery and studio space, which reopens in December 2023.
Previous recipients of the Fellowship include Morgan Hogg (2023), Eddie Abd (2022), Dennis Golding (2020), Shivanjani Lal (2019), Claudia Nicholson (2017), Consuelo Cavaniglia (2016), Heath Franco (2015), Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (2014), Jamie North (2013), Soda Jerk (2011), Khaled Sabsabi (2010), Diego Bonetto (2008) and Tony Schwenson (1988).
Annette Pitman, Create NSW Chief Executive said:
“I’m proud to see the NSW Visual Arts Fellowship Emerging building on its enduring legacy with a strong shortlist again for 2024.
“Under the curatorial expertise and mentorship of Artspace, this fellowship program is a pivotal moment for these artists, with an opportunity to develop their practice and present their talents in an exceptional and highly anticipated visual art exhibition.”
Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director, Artspace said:
“My co-curators, Sarah Rose and Yuanyu Li and I, are inspired by this opportunity to collaborate with these six artists. We look forward to seeing how the 2024 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) will find its own form, integrity, and identity as it returns to The Gunnery building for the first time since 2020.
“We are delighted to welcome this moment of renewal for the Fellowship, which will now be a three-month exhibition in the middle of Artspace’s artistic program and will offer opportunities for audiences to connect with these artists and their practices in unique ways.”
The Create NSW and Artspace 2024 NSW Visual Art Fellowship (Emerging) shortlisted artists are:
Kalanjay Dhir is an artist and musician based in Sydney on unceded Dharug land. His sculpture and video work draws on popular culture, sci-fi and myth. Kalanjay enjoys thinking about human consciousness and how this may change in the near future. From 2017-2020, he worked from Parramatta Artists’ Studios and this led to co-founding Pari ARI in 2019. Kalanjay also hosted ‘Wednesday Sunset’ on FBi Radio for three years, spotlighting music acts from West and Southwest Sydney.
Remy Faint is an emerging artist based on Gadigal Land, Sydney. His practice is motivated by the desire to expand languages of painterly abstraction by examining its global histories. While often referencing collection-based objects and materials specific to his Chinese heritage, his works mediate cross-cultural and material frameworks to explore themes surrounding exchange, visibility and hybridised artistic production.
Charlotte Haywood lives regionally in Northern NSW on Bundjalung Country. She is an experimental interdisciplinary artist working across the senses. She has a highly collaborative and process-driven practice that is dedicated to eco-aesthetics and biodiversity. Engaging interdisciplinary and intercultural narratives she cultivates places of care, vulnerability, reciprocity, regeneration, joy and participation; nurturing self-assembly.
Gillian Kayrooz is an emerging artist from Western Sydney whose practice is deeply rooted in alternative methods of truth-telling through image-making. Her artistic approach is firmly anchored in the communities of Western Sydney, reflecting her personal experiences, ongoing engagement and steadfast commitment to storytelling through collaborative and disruptive art-making methods.
Kien Situ is a multidisciplinary Asian-Australian artist based in Sydney. His practice spans architecture, sculpture, film and installation. With a thematic focus on ruin, distance and time; it exists to challenge, deconstruct and meditate on notions of space, heritage and identity as the ‘other’ in society. Reflecting on his Sinospheric background (Chinese/Vietnamese diaspora), he is exploring the position of Asian-Australian and greater immigrant/refugee identities in Australia.
Talia Smith is an artist and curator from Aotearoa and now based in Sydney, Australia. She is of Cook Island, Samoan, and Pakeha heritage. Her photographic and moving image practice explores notions of time, memory, familial histories and the way in which we connect with culture when removed from ancestral homelands. She has exhibited or been a part of projects at various public and artist run galleries in Aotearoa, Australia, Germany and the US.
