Winners of Glen Dimplex Artists Awards 2000 Announced
The winners of the 2000 Glen Dimplex Artists Award are American David Phillips and Dublin-born Paul Rowley, who work on a collaborative basis in film, video and photography. The recipient of the award for a sustained contribution to the visual arts in Ireland is the distinguished Irish painter Camille Souter. The awards, sponsored by the Irish-based company Glen Dimplex in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, were presented this evening (Tuesday 30 May) by the film director Neil Jordan at a dinner at the Museum.
The £15,000 Glen Dimplex Artists Award is designed to mark a significant level of achievement or development in the work and practice of exhibiting artists. The 2000 award was open to Irish artists who had exhibited in Ireland or elsewhere from 1 January to 22 November 1999 and to non-Irish artists who had exhibited in Ireland in the same period. Phillips and Rowley were nominated for the showing of their work at ESP, San Francisco, and Arthouse, Dublin, and at a number of international film festivals. The sustained contribution award is a non-monetary award being made for the third time this year. The recipient, Camille Souter, is one of Ireland’s most distinguished artists with a career stretching back over 50 years. She was presented with a specially commissioned brushed silver presentation piece by the Northern Ireland-based designer Selina Coyle.
David Phillips and Paul Rowley’s work in video, photography and film is presented in gallery-based installations and cinema screenings. In their compositions they juxtapose their own footage with “found film material”. The found imagery influences the making of their footage and is often the starting point for the work. The images used are carefully brought together through detailed digital editing and enhancing. Time is crucial in this editing process, and “is treated as a medium to be manipulated as any other”.
Phillips and Rowley have had solo exhibitions in several centres in San Francisco, and in Los Angeles, Lexington, Virginia, and London and have
participated in group shows in Dublin, Cork, San Francisco and Lexington,
. . .
Virginia. Their films have been screened in Dublin, Galway, Berlin, London, Montreal and San Francisco. David Phillips and was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1970 and studied in Washington, Lexington and Rome. Paul Rowley was born in Dublin in 1971 and studied at TCD, Dublin, and in California. They both live and work in San Francisco.
The other artists shortlisted for the 2000 award were the Irish sculptor Maud Cotter, the American sculptor Petah Coyne and the Irish film and photographic artist Clare Langan.
Camille Souter is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s most original, distinctive and independent painters. Born in Northampton, England, in 1929, she was brought to Ireland in 1932. In 1948 she went to train as a nurse in London and while recuperating from tuberculosis there began to paint. During the 1950s she travelled to Italy and Achill Island, Co Mayo. She settled in Calary Bog, Co Wicklow, in 1961 and continues to divide her time between there, Achill and Italy. Her paintings became more generally known following a mid-career retrospective at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, and the Ulster Museum, Belfast, in 1980. Her work is represented in the collections of the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, the Ulster Museum, Belfast, and in IMMA’s Collection.
Commenting on the awards Brenda McParland, Head of Exhibitions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Chair of the jury panel, said: “The panel decided that the award should go to David Phillips and Paul Rowley for the creativity demonstrated in their collaborative works combining film and soundtrack. The panel found the artists’ use of archival and found footage, as well as their own material, fascinating and their statement about the world we live in refreshingly contemporary”.
Lochlann Quinn, Deputy Chairman of Glen Dimplex, said that, as sponsors of the award since its inception in 1994, Glen Dimplex was delighted at the
unfailingly high standard of work coming forward each year and at the
. . .
continuing involvement of leading artists, both Irish and international. He was particularly pleased that Camille Souter had been chosen for the sustained contribution award, in recognition of her important role in the visual arts in Ireland over many years.
The Glen Dimplex Artists Award was first made in 1994 when the winner was multi-media artist Alanna O’Kelly. Subsequent winners were video and photographic artist Willie Doherty (1995), American installation artist and sculptor Janine Antoni (1996), photographic artist Paul Seawright (1997), sculptor and installation artist Siobhan Hapaska (1998) and English photographic artist Catherine Yass (1999).
The jury panel for the 2000 awards is;
Brenda McParland (Chair of panel), Head of Exhibitions, Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Lisa Corrin, Chief Curator, Serpentine Gallery, London.
Aileen MacKeogh, Director, Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design .
Dr Margaret Downes, Chairman, BUPA Ireland: Director, Bank of Ireland.
Dr Paula Murphy, Lecturer, History of Art Department, UCD.
The Glen Dimplex Artists Award Exhibition continues until 18 June 2000.
For further information and colour and black and white images please contact Philomena Byrne or Onagh Carolan at Tel : +353 1 612 9900,
Fax : +353 1 612 9999
30 May 2000