CATHERINE O’DONNELL
September 2024
The 2022 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award was awarded to NSW artist Catherine O’Donnell for her work ‘Glenbrook Window #1‘
Catherine O’Donnell, 2021, ‘Glenbrook Window #1’, charcoal on paper, 75 x 46 cm, unframed
Image courtesy of Dominik Mersch Gallery 2022
O’Donnell said ‘Drawing is close to my heart and at the core of my art practice and to be awarded an art award that celebrates Australian contemporary drawing at the highest level like the JADA Award is humbling.”
Catherine’s winning work ‘Glenbrook Window #1’ depicts the “suburban aesthetic which shapes and informs our everyday lives” by focussing on an ordinary window cropped to its dressings. The artist aims to extract the sense of humanity that emanates from lived-in spaces by reinterpreting and reinvigorating inhabited environments. This is seen in the work’s drawn lace curtain that signifies the opening between reality and illusion and becomes “an invitation to view the mundane with fresh eyes.”
The judge of the 2022 JADA Suzanne Cotter, Director of the MCA, Sydney, (R) and the winner, Catherine O’Donnell (L) for her work titled Glenbrook Window #1,2021, charcoal on paper.
An early career award was presented to Brisbane artist Jessica Northdurft for her work Thylacine Sighting.
Three additional artists were commended and highly commended by the judge for their submissions.
Flux, Alun Rhys Jones, Lives and works on Gumbaynggirr Country, Bellingen, NSW.
Plus Lagoon and Dancing Trees, Ileigh Hellier, Lives and works on Awabakal Land, Merewether NSW and Fear And Fury, Locust Jones, Lives and works on Dharug and Gundungurra Lands, Katoomba, NSW.
The JADA provides artists who reside in Australia a unique opportunity to explore the complexity of drawing.
-Press release courtesy of Grafton Regional Gallery, September 2022
All images via Melting Wax Photography courtesy of Grafton Regional Gallery
