Peter westwood: Finalist in the 2021 Geelong Contemporary art prize

Peter Westwood has been selected as a finalist in the 2021 Geelong Contemporary Art Prize, an acquisitive prize for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian painting. 

Peter’s painting, Field of Sorrow (Untethered) 2021, depicts a peculiar and arcane central plant form, derived from the European thistle. The areas surrounding this dominant form depict a visceral, almost bloody red soil, infused with other emerging and strange plant forms. The central plant is reminiscent of an incarnate otherworldly persona affecting a turbulent and changing landscape. The painting contains seven blue, loosely hung threads, that represent the untethering of this unbridled struggle.

Familiar and unfamiliar forms populate Field of Sorrow (Untethered) evoking a clash of worlds, and of times, where conflict and dominance conjure an ever-changing, and chaotic epoch.

Selectors for the 2021 prize exhibition were Grazia Gunn, art historian and curator; Jenepher Duncan, art historian and curator; and Jason Smith, CEO & Director, Geelong Gallery. 

We would like to congratulate Peter for his commanding painting and being selected for this very notable Australian painting prize.

Peter Westwood, Field of sorrow (Untethered) 2021, oil on linen, cotton threads 166 x 125 cm.  

PETER WESTWOOD – RESIDENCY AT LEIPZIG INTERNATIONAL ART PROGRAM

Peter Westwood recently completed a residency at LIA – the Leipzig International Art Program, Germany. LIA is located in the Spinnerei, an old cotton factory which now houses numerous artist studios, theatre companies, dance ensembles, designers, galleries and more.
LIA is a non-profit residency program that supports national and international artists by providing them with spacious studio, critical feedback on their residency work, as well as opportunities to exhibit at the Spinnerei.

PETER WESTWOOD IS THE 2016 BAYSIDE ACQUISITIVE ART PRIZE WINNER

Blockprojects congratulates Peter Westwood who has won the 2016 Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize at The Gallery @ BACC and Bayside City Council at the opening celebration. The Major Prize of $15,000 was awarded to Peter Westwood for his work Passivity: after ‘an episode from a fight' 2015, oil on linen mounted on dibond, 149 x 79cm.

The judges stated that, “Westwood’s painting combines elements of abstraction and realism in an image that offers as many interpretations as there are viewers.”

“This work speaks with delicacy and restraint, creating layered pictorial references and evoking complex and powerful emotions. But underlying all is a strong sense of humankind’s unavoidable enmeshment in the natural and psychological worlds.”

JUDGES
Kirsty Grant, CEO and Director Heide Museum of Modern Art, Guy Abrahams, CEO and Co-Founder of CLIMARTE, and Julie Skate, Gallery Supervisor at The Gallery @ BACC together with Bayside Mayor, James Long, Cr Felicity Frederico and Cr Heather Stewart who undertook the final judging of the Local Art Prize.