Getting into the FLOW of watercolour at Wollongong Art Gallery

Image: FLOW judge 2023, Beatrice Gralton, Senior Curator of the Brett Whiteley Studio at the Art Gallery of NSW and winning work 'Blue Girl in the Sun' by Natalya Hughes

Wollongong Art Gallery will welcome Blue Girl in the Sun by Natalya Hughes into its growing collection after the work was announced as the winner of the Wollongong Art Gallery’s $20,000 acquisitive National Contemporary Watercolour Prize last night.

The gouache and acrylic work took out top honours ahead of 144 other entries from across the country. FLOW is a biennial acquisitive competition that’s open to artists from around Australia and aims to encourage innovation and experimentation in watercolour painting, including works on paper in watercolour, acrylic, gouache, pen and ink, and watercolour mixed media.

“According to the judge, there was a very high standard of work in this year’s competition,’’ Wollongong Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said.

“You can certainly see that looking around the room at Wollongong Art Gallery. I’d like to congratulate all those who entered – and the 82 artists whose work was selected and has been hung in the Dickson and Fine Galleries and atrium as part of the FLOW exhibition. There are many beautiful and thought-provoking works to see.’’

In addition to first prize, three artists were also commended for their works. They were Leah Bullen with’ Underland No.1’, 2022, watercolour and gouache on paper, Penelope Mason with ‘Pine Lake’, 2022, watercolour on paper and Paul Miller with ‘Close to the Cascades’, 2023, watercolour on paper.

The prize was judged by Beatrice Gralton, the Senior Curator of the Brett Whitely Studio at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In her comments, she congratulated all the artists for their efforts and said that it was clear that watercolour practice continues to thrive with artists finding new ways of working with the medium.

“Within the works selected for display there is a strong interest in the beauty of our natural world exemplified through landscape and water scenes, and the capacity for watercolour to evoke the human experience of an encounter with nature,’’ she wrote.

“There are also images of urban life and botanical studies alongside still life, portraiture and works that suggest an interior world bound only by imagination. Works within the exhibition also demonstrate the persistence of art-history, the history of the watercolour as medium and the contemporary context for making art today.”

The winning work will be added to the Gallery collection and, after the current exhibition, will be available for future displays.

“I hope this acquisition of this work for Wollongong Art Gallery is an addition that will be shown long into the future and enjoyed by new audiences,’’ Ms Gralton wrote.

“Natalya’s art probes the complexities of representation of women in art history and the role of the female subject within the trajectory of modernism. Her fascinating work is a reminder that art is produced within a nuanced set of social conditions, and this includes contemporary practice.’’

FLOW National Contemporary Watercolour Prize exhibition runs until 17 March 2024.