Past Winners

2016 Winners

Scripture Theme: The Resurrection of the Christ

St John of God Health Care Prize Winner
$25,000 acquisitive

MEGAN ROBERT
The Bread Basket at Emmaus – then Flesh returned to Word
Bible paper and thread

Here is a whole bible, every printed page carefully rolled up and sewn into a basket in a long process of assemblage. The bread basket brings together word and sacrament, relating to the episode when the resurrected Christ walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and revealed himself when he broke bread at Supper.

The bread basket is a container but an empty vessel, it speaks of absence and presence, and we found that many possible readings and meanings can be drawn from this humble, yet complex object.

Highly Commended Prize Winner #1
Sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth
$5,000 non-acquisitive

CAMILLA LOVERIDGE
Over Jerusalem
Oil, wax, polymer and paper fibre on marine ply

A beautifully worked, tactile painting of a landscape – which she described as ‘the burnt terrain of humanity and life’. Attached to the surface of the painting is a brittle white round shape, which makes the absent body of Christ, present through the host.

Highly Commended Prize Winner #2
Sponsored by the Anglican Diocese of Perth
$5,000 non-acquisitive

LIBBY BYRNE
Resurrection: A Daily Navigation
Pigment ink prints on Canon Rag Photographique, 310 gsm in a handmade box

A daily navigation is a set of 50 prints documenting a drawing process, beginning on Ash Wednesday, and continued every day until Easter Sunday. Libby set up this process in order to understand the journey towards Resurrection.

She photographed the changing drawing each day, recording its development, which includes scraping back paint, starting again, taking a new turn and transforming the image. This is a process, a meditation that requires time, observation, thought, and persistence.

2014 Winners

Scripture Theme: I Kings 19:11-13 “Elijah meets God”

St John of God Health Care Prize Winner
$25,000 acquisitive

PAUL KAPTEIN
Untitled
Hand-carved laminated Paulownia wood

This work makes solid “The Contours of Emptiness”, as the artist expresses it.

The laminated timber sculpture, carved in the manner of a classical marble bust, works well as a metaphor for an inner stillness that came over Elijah as he became aware of the silence after the preceding tumult.

The work is technically very refined.

Soft undulating folds of the cloak close around a clenched hand at the throat and the prophet’s mantle frames a faceless font or vessel into which we can capture and dissolve our thoughts. The single hole in the chest explodes into a multitude at the back, as if the subject is being violently shot through with a revelation.

There is an edgy ambiguity here that points to the prophet as a marginalised, subversive truth-teller while being suggestive of the hoody of a teenager.

It has a telling presence.

Highly Commended Prize Winner #1
Sponsored by the Uniting Church in the City
$5,000 non-acquisitive

STEPHEN FEARNLEY
Elijah Meets God
Photomedia

The hand of Man reaching out for the hand of God is a powerful and simple image.

The work plays out the symbols of traditional religious iconography – through the positioning of the fingers – in an arresting, confronting manner.

This is emphasised by the distorted perspective of the hand and arm.

The expressiveness of the hand also acts as a map of a person’s life, marking out the past and suggesting a destiny at the same time.

Highly Commended Prize Winner #2
Sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth
$5,000 non-acquisitive

AARON MOORE
YHWH
Watch a video about this artwork

A single idea based on naming the sound of God, the life force itself, whispered breath after breath, is realised through this four-minute video.

A bearded man (Could it be the prophet Elijah perhaps?) is filmed in close up and made exposed and open in this meditative act that taps into the mystical in the best sense.

That physical expression of the spiritual is even more pronounced as each exhalation condenses and evaporates on the lens, drawing in the viewer in a way that is unsettling and familiar at the same time.

St John of God Health Care Prize for Emerging Artists Winner
$5,000 acquisitive

JULIAN POON
Elijah Hears God
Acrylic paint and texta on canvas

This solid work depicts Elijah shunning the face of God in his humility amid the broken landscape after the ravages of wind, earthquake fire. Emergent plants in Elijah’s cave symbolise the restorative promise of the future.

The picture draws on powerful iconography suggestive of Medieval and Byzantine art, as well as the style of contemporary graffiti.

2012 Winners

Scripture Theme: Galations 4:4 – “Born of a woman”

The Mandorla Art Award

John Paul
Palm Sunday
Gouache and pastel
120 x 120

The Mandorla Youth Art Award

Julian Poon
Jesus, born of a woman
Texta on canvas
122 x 91

Highly Commended

Roddy Darlington
Reverence
Oil and acrylic on canvas
160 x 160

Highly Commended

Thelma Cluning
We Honour our Women
Textiles, fibres
85 x 100

People’s Choice

Debbie Walker Tremlett
The Gift of a Promise
Oil on canvas
105 x 75

2010 Winners

Scripture Theme: Luke 10:25-37 “Who is my neighbour”

The Mandorla Youth Art Award

Emma Itzstein
Neighbour X
Mixed media print
42 x 60
Watch a video about this artwork

The Mandorla Art Award

Annette Allman
Caring in a competitive world
Oil
Watch a video about this artwork

Highly Commended & People’s Choice

Bob Booth
I am your neighbour
Oil on canvas
140 x 150
Watch a video about this artwork

Highly Commended

Jánis Nedéla
The golden rule
Acrylic on canvas
144 x 144
Watch a video about this artwork

2007 Winners

Scripture Theme: The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ (Mark 14:43–15:41, John 20:1–21)

The Mandorla Art Award

Concetta Petrillo
Without finding any motive for his death, they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him killedOil on canvas 167.5 x 122.5
Watch a video about this artwork