Opening Event: John Fries Award & Gerwyn Davies: Plush
Join us at UNSW Galleries to celebrate the announcement of the John Fries Award winner and the opening of ‘Gerwyn Davies: Plush’.
Shortlisted from over 400 applications, the seven finalists of the John Fries Award present newly commissioned works, developed with the support of curator Miriam Kelly. The 2021 finalists include Darcey Bella Arnold, Daniel Jenatsch, Sara Morawetz, Ryan Presley, JD Reforma, Melanie Jame Wolf, and Shevaun Wright. Matching the philanthropic support of the Fries family with the Copyright Agency’s enduring commitment to developing and sustaining artistic practices, the John Fries Award has recognised the contributions and achievements of early-career practitioners from across Australia and New Zealand for more than a decade.
Gerwyn Davies' photographs explore the expression of camp as an aesthetic strategy in photographic self-representation. They renew and affirm camp's queer critical capacities, moving beyond popular understandings of camp as a gay sensibility, a mode of theatrical performativity, or an ironic inversion of taste. For Davies, camp is a performative and aesthetic intensification that can be applied to images and the image-making process itself. 'Plush' brings together works from the series 'Utopia', 'Deluxe', 'Sunny Boys', 'Idols', 'Leisure Sick' and 'Bel-Air' all produced over the last four years
COVID-19 Safety Measures
UNSW Galleries has implemented a number of safety and hygiene measures to keep our audiences safe. This event will have limited places to comply with NSW Government recommendations. For further details on our COVID-safe plans, please visit the UNSW Galleries website.
UNSW Galleries events are generously supported by Young Henrys Brewing & Distillery, Freeman Vineyards, and CAPI.
Image caption: Gerwyn Davies, ‘LA #2 (Norms) 2020. Archival inkjet print. Image courtesy: the artist; Jan Murphy Gallery Protege, Brisbane; and Michael Reid Gallery, Berlin
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