Australian Photographic Society announces winner of inaugural Conceptual Photography prize

The Australian Photographic Society (APS) has announced Victorian photographer Deb Gartland as the winner of the inaugural Australian Conceptual Photography Prize (ACPP).

As winner, Gartland takes home a $10,000 cash prize and her image, ‘Self-Reflection’, will be acquired by Magnet Gallery.

Her concept statement for for the work reads:

“Self-Reflection Photo Encaustic & Mixed Media Ocean photography is exhilarating at any time of the day. Pre-dawn early mornings, long exposures and close-ups. Sunsets, night skies and winter storms. Playful and experimental shutter speeds, water and atypical results sees deliberate manipulations that calm the Great Southern Ocean’s turbulence. Encaustic and Mixed Media additions consciously highlight individual components while softening others.

Creating a truly individual environment of texture, fluidity and vastness. Self-Reflection encourages the viewer to immerse themselves in the sometimes tempestuous and uncontrolled, the ocean soothes the soul and brings a contemplation of life and our place in it.”

Anne Pappalardo of Brisbane received a $500 voucher from Emergent Designs for her work entitled ‘When the son becomes a father’.

Pappalardo's concept statement reads:

“This image explores the relationship between my husband, a first generation Australian and his Sicilian father who cut cane to support his family on arrival in Australia in the 60s. The cane knife and its placement on my husband's shoulders symbolises that while their life experiences are vastly different, their struggles in their roles as fathers, breadwinners, heads-of-the-house, moral compasses and problem-solvers for their children are common between them.”

All the finalists, together with their concept statements, can be be seen on the APS website.
 
The exhibition of the 39 finalists’ works continues at Magnet Gallery, 13 Wharf Street, Docklands, Melbourne until 28 July 2019.