14 Jun Stephen Haley | Finalist in the Hadley’s Art Prize

Stephen Haley has been selected as a finalist for the new Hadley’s Art Prize 2017 for his oil painting, ‘Take Away’. 

Stephen says of this work, “There are two Australian landscapes. One before European settlement and the increasingly urban, built landscape that followed. Now a virtual landscape adjoins the actual. We take-away from one to make the other. Yet history persists, all are simultaneous, interwoven.

The painting’s background is loosely based on John Glover’s 1835 work, Aborigines Dancing at Brighton. Brighton is a place with many histories of displacement. A ubiquitous take-away restaurant dominates the foreground. It hides the dancers and reflects itself. Its perspective lines expand, resembling roads, narrative intersections. The people remain. A place is a Space with history. You can’t take that away.”

The new Hadley’s Art Prize, Hobart is Australia’s richest landscape art award. To be held annually, it celebrates painting, printmaking and drawing to reconnect with the history of art exhibitions at Hadley’s Orient Hotel and promote the work of contemporary Australian landscape artists.

The Prize will be announced at the exhibition opening on 14 July, and the exhibition will be open to the public 15 July – 25 August 2017.