Overview

Artspace and Create NSW are pleased to announce the eight finalists for the 2020 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship: Akil Ahamat, Tarik Ahlip, Tiyan Baker, Kate Brown, Dennis Golding, Julia Gutman, Nadia Hernández and Kirtika Kain.

With over 100 years of history, the Fellowship is a key exhibition for profiling the dynamism and breadth of emerging contemporary artistic practice in NSW. Valued at $30,000, this Fellowship is offered by the NSW Government through Create NSW to enable a visual artist at the beginning of their career to undertake a self-directed program of professional development. Now in its 24th year at Artspace, it continues to define new generations of contemporary art practice for both artists and audiences.

Each year Create NSW convenes an independent judging panel of esteemed colleagues to determine the finalists, whom Artspace acknowledges for engaging with insight and passion in assessing what was again a highly competitive round of proposals.

Curators Alexie Glass-Kantor and Elyse Goldfinch have said: “As a community we are experiencing complex and difficult times, Covid-19 has impacted all facets of our lives and we are also bearing witness to profound and necessary social change. In this current moment Artspace and Create NSW believe that the 2020 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship offers a critical opportunity for professional development for emerging artists through curatorial advocacy and engagement. We are honoured to be working collaboratively with the eight outstanding artists who are all new to the Fellowship and to jointly shaping an exhibition that will offer unique insight into their practices. We warmly congratulate the finalists and look forward to welcoming audiences to Artspace for this highly anticipated exhibition.”

Glass-Kantor and Goldfinch will be collaborating with each of the artists through the development of the exhibition. The exhibition will run from Friday 30 October through to Sunday 13 December, 2020. Of the eight finalists, one artist will be awarded the Fellowship on Saturday 14 November.