9th KAAF Art Prize Award Ceremony and Exhibition Opening at KCC

The award ceremony as well as the exhibition opening of the Korea-Australia Arts Foundation (KAAF) Art Prize took place at the Korean Cultural Centre Australia (KCC) on 25th November, an event organised by the KCC in collaboration with the KAAF. It is the 9th year of the KAAF Art Prize, which has become a steadily growing art competition in terms of its quantity and quality with this year’s edition boasting more than 550 entries, among which 69 finalists’ artworks are on display at the KCC for two months.

The opening night of the exhibition was attended by approximately 200 guests consisting of artists and individuals actively involved in the art industry including Director Jihee Kim of the KCC, KAAF Chair Deok-geun Park, KAAF Director Ho-im Lee, a renowned art critic John McDonald and Oliver Smith, Senior Lecturer of Visual Art at the University of Sydney.

Sonia Martignon won this year’s grand prize winning $20,000 Australian dollars with her artwork titled The Charred Mosaic of an Ancient Landscape. Sonia, based in Darwin, drew the silhouette of Plywood into her work and expressed Darwin’s landscape with delicate colours and detailed descriptions, which was highly praised by the judges resulting in her winning the grand prize.

The Highly Commended went to a Melbourne-based ceramic sculptor Helen Earl for her witty sculpture depicting an electric cord Choose the Future: Electrify! and Lizie Hall for Centaur (9) that creates a dismal atmosphere with a black-lined therianthrope painted on crimson background with each artist receiving $2,000 as a prize.

Matt Bromhead represented by Sydney’s Olsen Gallery was awarded the Commended for his abstract painting Breeze and the other awardee is Kevin Song for his still-life painting Still Live with Bottle and Flower.

Jihee Kim, Director of the KCC said “we appreciate the efforts made by the KAAF to support Australian and Korean artists and promote artists’ exchanges with its annual art prize”. “This year we have seen Sydney’s major art institutions featuring Korean artists from 500 Arhats exhibition at Powerhouse Museum to Do Ho Suh’s solo exhibition at MCA and Kimsooja and Koo Bonchang’s artworks to be displayed at the new building of the Art Gallery of NSW. This is highly encouraging and I hope we could add value to this momentum with the annual KAAF Art Prize” she added.

Since launched in 2013, the KAAF Art Prize has been supporting artists practicing in Australia while promoting artists’ exchanges between Australia and Korea and the KCC has been serving as an exhibition partner for 9 years since the prize was established.

This exhibition featuring the 9th KAAF Art Prize Finalists’ artworks runs until 27th January, 2023 at the KCC gallery space. The application process for the art prize usually starts July each year with further details available on the KAAF website: www.kaaf.org.au.

2022 Korean-Australian Arts Foundation (KAAF) Art Prize

·         Exhibition period: 25 November 2022 to 27 January 2023

·         Venue: Korean Cultural Centre Australia (FG, 255 Elizabeth St Sydney NSW 2000)

·         FREE admission

·         Website: https://www.koreanculture.org.au/kaaf-art-prize-2022/

Group photo at the Opening Ceremony