Brisbane artist, Leonard Brown, is winner of the annual Blake Prize for Religious Art with
a work titled If you put your ear close, you’ll hear it breathing. It’s a painting of subtle colour variation and interesting texture,
with repeating patterns designed to express the inner stillness and
silence of mystical experience. Brown’s faith journey has traversed
Catholicism, Anglicanism, and most recently Eastern Orthodoxy and
threads of these three Christian traditions inform his work.
The Blake has never been far from
controversy, and this year’s prize, announced in Sydney last night, is
no different. The work of Sydney artist Rodney Pople, which was highly
commended by the judges, is a provocative painting dealing with clergy
sexual abuse.
Entitled Cardinal with Altar Boy, its setting is the
interior of a beautiful baroque church, and it portrays a headless
prelate dressed in ecclesiastical finery, with an altar boy in his lap.
The boy’s genitals are vaguely visible through his white surplice. The
pose of the couple is reminiscent of the Pieta, of the Virgin cradling
the crucified Christ.
The Blake Prize was established in 1951, and is named after eighteenth
century eccentric English poet, mystic and artist, William Blake. On
the homepage
of the Blake Society website, it’s described as ‘the oldest prize in
Australia dedicated to spirituality, religion and cultural diversity.’
In explaining its controversial nature, Chair of the Blake Society, Rod
Pattenden, says in his statement about the prize on the website, that
in contrast ‘to art prizes that are awarded for distinct subject areas
such as landscape or portraiture, the Blake has always invited a much
more open, personal and idiosyncratic response, so much so that it has
earned the criticism, ire, and sometimes applause of the critics and
public alike.’
There are four categories in the prize. Most important is the main
Blake Prize worth $20,000. The other prizes, the John Coburn Emerging
Artist Award, the Blake Prize for Human Justice, and the Blake Poetry
Prize are each worth $5000.
The video above features interviews with the three winners of the visual art
prizes, and their works, and some shots of Rodney Pople’s highly
commended work.
The John Coburn Award was won by young Melbourne artist, Michelle
Sakaris. Her work, entitled Font, is an enlarged photo of – believe it
or not – an aluminium egg cup. But the way it is framed, positioned and
lit makes it resemble a gleaming brass baptismal font, or a gold
chalice. It lifts and transforms this mundane item into the realm of
the sacred and iconic.
And the Human Justice Prize was won by Sydney based artist, Fiona
White, for her