SCA awards Julian Day $28,000 art prize

Julian Day was among five artists shortlisted for one of Australia’s biggest contemporary art prizes of the year. A radio presenter on ABC Classic FM, Day recently completed a Master of Fine Art degree at SCA in 2013. In a short period of time, Day has gone on to participate in several solo and group exhibitions in Australia including at the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, as well as projects internationally at the Prague Quadrennial, Bang On A Can Marathon in New York, and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The judging panel given the challenging task of selecting this year’s winner included Art Gallery of NSW curator Nicholas Chambers and four SCA lecturers: Dr John Di Stefano, Dr Karin Findeis, Justin Trendall and Andrew Lavery. The panel unanimously agreed that Julian Day’s sound-based artwork represented a particularly compelling body of artwork.

Judge and Selection Committee Chair, Associate Professor John Di Stefano said: “Julian has a unique way of making sound visible. He has successful brought together three sound works in the SCA gallery space, synthesizing them into an elegant installation that makes us experience sound in a different way. Consequently, his work makes us also think about sound differently, as something more tangible.”

Julian Day commented: “I am absolutely thrilled. Originally my heart sank when I saw the four other artists I was up against in this exhibition as their work is incredible. Whilst I have enjoyed some success in Australia, I will seize the opportunity to use this award to spend some time in three key contemporary art cities - New York, London and Berlin - to expand my practice.”

The artist cites the influence of music in his artwork, which explores how sound can reveal social, territorial and atmospheric relationships. His works typically use homogeneous sound to capture and instigate turbulence within different spaces and environments such as railway sheds, market places, laneways, parks and galleries.

In the SCA exhibition Day’s three works White Noise (2015), Antechamber (2015) and Studies in Unison (2014-2015) are simple yet evocative, encompassing installation, video, sound and performance.

Associate Professor John Di Stefano concluded: “We felt that this is a particularly opportune moment in Julian’s career trajectory. In keeping with spirit of this award, we felt Julian would benefit significantly given the opportunity to develop his work and ideas further overseas at this time.

“The quality of the artworks by all five shortlisted artists and alumni of SCA is of an extremely high caliber. The artworks are creatively ambitious in both concept and in execution, and exemplify the diversity of critical approaches to contemporary art practice that SCA fosters,” he said.

The contemporary work of Julian Day and four other shortlisted artists Bonita Bub, Lucas Davidson, Nick Dorey and Clare Milledge are on display in the 2015 Fauvette Loureiro Finalists exhibition at SCA Galleries until 31 October.