—— Gippsland Art Gallery: John Leslie Art Prize ——

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Gippsland Art Gallery

announced the winners for the ‘John Leslie Art Prize 2020’

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— THE WINNER —

Sarah Tomasetti

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Sarah Tomasetti, Kailash from the Air, 2019, Oil and incision on fresco plaster, 220 x 130cm. Courtesy the artist and Australian Galleries, Melbourne and Sydney

Tomasetti’s winning painting was selected by judges Simon Gregg (Gallery Director) and Erin Mathews (Gallery Curator) from a field of fifty finalists chosen by guest judge Robert Nelson (Art Critic, The Age) and senior Gallery staff. In all, 409 entries were submitted for the 2020 John Leslie Art Prize, from a total of 334 artists.

Kailash from the Air forms part of a group of works in the Wayfaring exhibition 2019: Tomasetti: “Wayfaring” is about ways of being in the landscape that become enshrined in culture. This series of works shows various points along the pilgrimage route around Mount Kailash on the Tibetan Plateau. Pilgrims perform the Kora around the holy mountain, 108 circumbulations in Buddhist scripture is believed to lead to enlightenment. As the peak has never been scaled, Kailash from the Air is drawn from an open source drone image, its wavering view a subtle analogy for the age of the Anthropocene, in which the human gaze rises along with our multiplying presence. The other views are all taken from the ground. (Read full text on Beavergalleries website link below)

**Gallery director Simon Gregg described Tomasetti’s winning work as magical. “The painting is a dazzling tour-de-force that draws you in,” he says.**

“The handling and application of the oil paint into wet fresco is exemplary and the subject is a timely one with the changing climate and the need for increasing respect of our planet’s finite resources. The more one looks at the painting the more we find within it, and it continues to unfold before our eyes”.