Bulletin

Issue: May 2006

Arts

La Trobe artist wins ‘A Place in the World’

La Trobe University photographic artist, Donna Bailey, has won a major award in the recent ‘A Place in the World’ Visual Arts Prize in Adelaide.

The inaugural award, by the Association of Commonwealth Universities and University of Adelaide, showcases visual arts excellence of students from universities in Australia and New Zealand.

The win was the latest in a series of awards for Ms Bailey – a doctoral research student in Visual Arts on the University’s Bendigo campus – who has become a national identity with an emerging international reputation in the field of photography.

Ms Bailey took out one of two awards: the University of Adelaide Visual Art prize valued at $3,000 for her work The Ideal which is now in the University of Adelaide’s art collection.

Her work depicts local children flying kites on the granite plains of Bendigo. Ms Bailey says it reflects life in cental Victoria and the ‘hope, energy and resilience’ of the community in the face of drought.

Head of Visual Arts and Design, David Stuchbery, said the award was a significant achievement for Ms Bailey and the University.

With three other artists from the Bendigo campus – photography student Garry Brannon, painter and PhD candidate Karen Annett, and painter and Master of Visual Arts candidate Margaret Parker – also selected as finalists, Mr Stuchbery said the award highlights the importance of research in the visual arts.

‘The focus, energy and effort required to be an active researcher can provide a tremendous boost for exhibiting and practising artists.’

Ms Bailey was presented the award by Nobel Prize winning author, Professor John Coetzee, in front of 300 vice-chancellors from Commonwealth countries.

Her latest exhibition, ‘The Footballers’ was on show at the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre in View Street, Bendigo during April.