SCA awards Nick Dorey $28,000 art prize
Nick Dorey is the latest recipient of the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Artists Travel Scholarship from Sydney College of the Arts.
Dorey was among five artists shortlisted for one of Australia’s biggest contemporary art prizes of the year. The annual scholarship supports a recent SCA graduate to continue their development through international travel.
"I'm overwhelmed really, this makes projects which are completely outside my regular capabilities doable. I have twins on the way and it looks like they will get to start their life with a bit of an adventure. It’s really important to me to integrate family and practice and this makes it possible," Nick Dorey said.
Alchemy is the inspiration for the artist’s work. Through the process of chemical or symbolic transformation of found objects, Dorey creates large scale installations. Dorey completed Honours at SCA in 2013, had his first solo show in 2014 and was selected for inclusion in the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Primavera exhibition in 2014. He is a two-time recipient of the Zelda Stedman young artist scholarship, recipient of an Australia Council ArtStart grant 2014-2015 and was a 2015 artist in residence at Artspace, Sydney.
In 2017, he exhibited The drowning of Hermaphroditus, which was commissioned by and for the Murray Art Museum Albury. The work that won the Fauvette, Duet // Conjunction II // Islands in the Stream, was made possible by that commission.
A woman inspects an artwork by Fauvette finalist Richard Kean, Esoterics of the Monochord.
Professor Margaret Harris, chair of the judging panel and Acting Director of Sydney College of the Arts, said ‘We chose Nick Dorey as the winner from an exceptionally strong field that encompassed quite different kinds of art practice. Nick’s towering piece is at once seductive and repulsive. It challenges and rewards the attentive viewer in every one of its intricate details.’
Nick plans to use the scholarship to undertake two overseas trips and three distinct artist endeavours.
The first, will be a one month artist residency at Taliesin West in Western Arizona, at Frank Lloyd Wright's former winter studio. This will be used as the starting point for a series of visits in the southwest of the United States investigating and researching land art sites with a particular focus on locating and exploring the remains of destroyed or heavily degraded western American land art by the likes of Walter De Maria and Michael Heizer.
In 2019, Nick will commence a residency at Combre Martin silver galena mine in North Devon, which is an underground silver galena mine once owned by John Dee, the court alchemist of Queen Elizabeth.
In the same year his plans will conclude with a residency in Scotland focusing on symbolic representations of distillation as an act of spiritual purification.
The contemporary work of Nick and the four other shortlisted artists Consuelo Cavaniglia, Richard Kean, Kate Scardifield, Salote Tawale are on display in the 2017 Fauvette Loureiro Finalists exhibition until 28 October.
Event details
What: FAUVETTE 2017
When: 5 - 28 October
Where: SCA Galleries, Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney, Kirkbride Way, Lilyfield (enter via Balmain Road, opposite Cecily Street)
Opening Hours: Mon - Fri 11am - 5pm, Sat 11am - 4pm
About the scholarship
Set up in 2003, the scholarship celebrates the bequest of the late Renee Erdos, a graduate of the University of Sydney. The scholarship was established in memory of her mother Fauvette Loureiro, the eldest daughter of Portuguese painter Arthur Loureiro (1853-1932) who came to Australia in 1885 and established an association with the Heidelberg School in Melbourne.
Drawing from a wealth of talent from recent SCA graduates, the Fauvette Loureiro prize and exhibition has cemented a reputation for showcasing outstanding contemporary art.