Grafton Regional Gallery

JACARANDA AQUISITION DRAWING AWARD

Highest attendance to JADA exhibition in a decade

The 2022 Jacaranda Drawing Award (JADA) had a record attendance, with visitation of more than 13,500 people during the exhibition at the Grafton Regional Gallery. The judge of this JADA was Suzanne Cotter, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney who awarded the prize of $35,000 to Catherine O’Donnell for the artwork Glenbrook Window #1.

The biennial JADA celebrates the diversity of Australian contemporary drawing at its finest. This year 56 artists were selected from 641 entries for the exhibition, which will tour six regional East Coast communities throughout 2023 and 2024.

The exhibition encapsulates the extraordinary spectrum of current drawing practice, from the expressive and abstract, to hyperrealism, and works that evoke a poetic and emotional response to our environment, the human condition, and current global events.

The gallery’s flagship art prize is generously sponsored by the Friends of Grafton Gallery and through entry fees.

PICTURED ABOVE: 2022 JADA Winner Catherine O’Donnell and 2022 JADA Judge Suzanne Cotter, Director Museum of Contemporary Art, with the winning artwork.

ARCHIBALD PRIZE 2022 ON EXHIBITION AT THE GRAFTON REGIONAL GALLERY

PICTURED: Archibald Prize 2022 finalist, Claus Stangl Taika Waititi (detail) © the artist

 On exhibition 18 December 2022 to 29 January 2023

 Tickets available via Eventbrite.

Scan the QR code or go to https://graftonregionalgallery.eventbrite.com

Prestigious and often controversial, the Archibald Prize is Australia’s foremost portraiture prize. The trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW judge entries and the winner receives $100 000, courtesy of ANZ.

Awarded annually since 1921, the Archibald Prize was established following a bequest from former gallery trustee and founder of The Bulletin magazine, JF Archibald (1856–1919), whose aim was to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians.

It is awarded to the best portrait painted in the past year by any artist resident in Australasia from at least one live sitting, ‘preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in arts, letters, science or politics’.

Archibald Prize finalists are also eligible for the Packing Room Prize and the ANZ People’s Choice award. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, and many previous entries are now part of the gallery’s collection.

The Archibald Prize 2022 touring exhibition offers audiences outside Sydney the opportunity to see the finalists’ works.