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