LYN DI CIERO
Crushed by Damien Gavilleet, winner of the Castaways $5,000 Capral Aluminium Sustainability Award
Nedlands-based artist Joan Johnson has been announced as the winner of the $10,000 Alcoa Major Award in the City of Rockingham’s Castaways Sculpture Awards 2024. To be eligible for the major prize, artists were required to include at least 30% aluminium in their work.
Johnson’s work, Deconstructed, Reconstructed and Embellished, created from aluminium, Perspex and wood, is a deconstructed dice, appearing in a jagged line of aluminium squares one metre high by five metres long. The dice’s circular dots are crafted from woven aluminium cans, set back in the construction and covered with Perspex, reminiscent of portholes. As implied by the title of the work, and in the spirit of Castaways ethos of promoting environmentalism, this is the third time Johnson has reconfigured/recycled elements of the work.
A regular exhibitor at Castaways since its inception in 2008, winning three minor prizes and a Highly Commended acknowledgement, Johnson says she was astounded, yet grateful and honoured to have received the Alcoa Major Award. “This is my first major award with Castaways. It has always been a pleasure to exhibit in the event, with its seamless organisation by all who run it, but this year, and to win, was even more of a pleasure,” she says.
Judges Angela McHarrie and Stuart Elliott said the work was a fitting manifestation of Castaways’ ethos of the need to consciously reduce our collective footprint and make conscious and sustained decisions to conserve what we have. “The brightly coloured, seductive aluminium of the cans is held in tension by the expanse of the surrounding grey aluminium, mutually alluding to a mapped landscape. Indeed, the captured circles’ meticulous warp and weft forms a kind of grid giving a sense that this is big, a global concern,” they said, adding, “it is a beautifully developed work which embraces the basic premise of Castaways with a substantial elegance.”
Other winners at Castaways were Shoalwater artist Kelly Robbins who won the $5,000 Innovation Award with Pin Cushion Protea consisting of bright yellow flowers created from street sweeper brushes with fan blades as leaves.
Swan View artist Damien Gavillet won the $5,000 Capral Aluminium Sustainability Award with Crushed, a crushed oil barrel suspended in an iron ring representing the fact we consume 100 million barrels of oil each day.
Winner of the $2,500 Maquette and Small Sculpture Exhibition was Hilton artist Valerie Schonjahn with Travellers,two high fired porcelain receptacles topped by cleverly woven pointed mounds of chip packaging.
Golden Bay artist Gary Aitken was awarded the $2,000 City of Rockingham Local Resident Award with Those Who Have Passed, an aluminium skull with crosses projecting from it, as a memorial to those who have passed and are not forgotten.
Two artists were Highly Commended: Ed Stafford in the Sustainability Award, and Sky Edwards in the Maquette and Small Sculpture Exhibition.
In the Castaways Schools Competition, Rockingham Beach Education Support Centre won the Alcoa Primary Schools Exhibition with I’m a peliCAN, not a trash CAN, and Rockingham Montessoru School Adolescent Program won the Secondary School section with Outer Harbour. Two schools were Highly Commended in the Alcoa Primary Schools Exhibition: Endeavour Schools and Settlers Primary School.
Rockingham Mayor Deb Hamblin said there had been a steady stream of visitors to Castaways at the Foreshore and Rockingham Arts Centre. “It’s wonderful to see so many visitors admiring the inventive and stunning sculptural works made by artists and schools who have all risen to the challenge of transforming recycled materials into objects of beauty.”
Castaways continues until Sunday 3 November at Rockingham Foreshore and Rockingham Arts Centre.
See a free Sustainability Pop-Up on Churchill Park, Rockingham 9am – 5pm Saturday 2 November.
Castaways Artist Talks
Saturday 2 November
1pm: Garry Robson
1.30pm: Mike Walmsley
2pm: Scott Michell
2.30pm: Erica Zaino
Sunday 3 November
1.30pm: Marite Norris
2pm: Rachael Lemon
Joan Johnson, winner of the $10,000 Alcoa Major Award with her work, Deconstructed, Reconstructed and Embellished.
Winner of the Maquette and Small Sculpture Exhibition, Travellers, high fired porcelain and chip packaging by Valerie Schonjahn.
Winner of the $5,000 Castaways Innovation Award, Pin Cushion Protea, street sweeper brushes, fan blades and tubing by Kelly Robbins.
Urchin of Myopia, shark net float, contact lensd containers and galvanised steel by Sheryl Chant.
Aqueous, aluminium by Kim Perrier.
The Overflow, recycled tanks, drainage pipe by Ed Stafford.