Stephen Bush Awarded the Paul Guest Drawing Prize 2024
We are pleased to thrilled to announce that Stephen Bush has been awarded this year’s Paul Guest Drawing Prize for his work Warmgrau, I–III (2024).
Presented by the Bendigo Art Gallery, the non-acquisitive biennial prize highlights contemporary drawing practice in Australia. The each finalists’ work, including Bush’s winning entry, is on view until 27 January 2025 at the Bendigo Art Gallery.
Notes from the 2024 Judge, Chris McAuliffe (Emeritus Professor, School of Art and Design, Australian National University):
“The hours that I spent dwelling on the short-listed entries passed very quickly. It was a great workout, having to ask yourself ‘What does it mean to call this a drawing?’ over and over. In the end, I selected a winning work which I thought asked and answered that question in many different ways. Stephen Bush’s Warmgrau, I-III, 2024, pushes drawing to an ambitious physical size. That makes process critical: thousands of marks accumulate, each of them an exercise in pressure, density, hue and tone. For all that, it’s a seductive drawing. Delicate in colour, enigmatic in mood, inviting exploration. Maybe it’s the seaside setting but I felt the same curiosity and wonder you have peering into a rock pool. There’s a cunning bait-and-switch that toys with expectations about drawing: it seems closely observed but is utterly unreal, it maps a territory that can never be found, it delivers information that just won’t add up. It reminded me of Borges’ story about a mysterious encyclopedia entry documenting a non-existent world; unrelenting in its attention to detail but adding up to something fantastic.”
Paul Guest Drawing Prize 2024 30 November 2024 – 27 January 2025 Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, VIC
Stephen Bush and Helga Groves in the Paul Guest Drawing Prize
We are pleased to announce that Stephen Bush and Helga Groves are finalists in this year’s Paul Guest Drawing Prize. Presented by the Bendigo Art Gallery, the non-acquisitive biennial prize highlights contemporary drawing practice in Australia.
Paul Guest Drawing Prize 2024 30 November 2024 – 27 January 2025 Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, VIC
Read Helen Hughes insightful review of Stephen Bush’s most recent exhibition A Troubled Mind in ARTFORUM.
“‘A Troubled Mind’ was an evocative title for Stephen Bush’s most recent exhibition. Characteristic of the artist’s practice, which spans almost five decades now, certain tropes reappeared across many of the paintings like demons that could not be exorcised. A preening cockerel, a goat looking back at the viewer over its left shoulder, a potbellied man pissing on the street, another man with several pipes dangling ostentatiously from his mouth—these forms echoed across this body of work produced, for the most part, over the past three years. Some of the motifs—for instance, the farm animals—have been haunting Bush’s practice for far longer, reflecting the artist’s childhood on a farm in rural Victoria.”
Review: Gerry Bell, ‘Stephen Bush, A Troubled Mind, Melbourne Art Scene.
May 2023
Read Gerry Bell’s review in Melbourne Art Scene.
“There are, to be sure, many familiar elements within the pictures, traditional Lowlands architecture, violet monochromes giving full rein to enamel marbling and phantasmagorical backgrounds, abundant small goods displayed before waterlogged landscapes, figures in period costume, abandoned and converted delivery vans, imposing Modernist office blocks and heavy industry.”
Melbourne Now will be displayed throughout all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia showcasing new works and commissions by emerging, mid-career, senior practitioners, and collectives.
*Jon Campbell is represented by Darren Knight Gallery
Join us at the gallery on the 7th and the 14th of November for a floor talk with Jon Campbell and Stephen Bush. The artists will discuss their recent collaboration and give a short exhibition tour. Talks will commence at 11am. Due to density quotients, places are strictly limited and bookings are essential.
Stephen Bush’s exhibition From the Rubber Room is due to open at Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, on Saturday 29 August 2020. This body of work features new paintings, works on paper and sculptures by Bush, alongside a series of works made in collaboration with the artist’s long-time friend, Jon Campbell.
The exhibition forms part of an artist initiated swap between Sutton Gallery and Darren Knight Gallery. Jon Campbell’s reciprocal exhibition at Sutton Gallery will re-open when restrictions across Victoria are eased.
