Del Kathryn Barton
Henry Ward

THE 2021 NATIONAL TEACHER-ARTIST PRIZE WINNER
received a Cash Prize of $10,000
PLUS their school received art materials from Zart worth $10,000



Roxanne Lillis
Mount Carmel Catholic College, Varroville, NSW

Phoenix Rising # 3
acrylic on canvas
(126 x 152 x 2cm)

“This work is one of a series painted after the devastation of losing everything we owned in the December 2019 bush fires. It is process driven on loose canvas, from a roll given to me by a friend.
My paintings in this series are intuitive, spontaneous and cathartic, based on memories of my home and land.
Phoenix Rising #3 has many layers of memory, thus many layers of paint, until I’m happy with the resolution.”

NTAP RUNNER-UP 2021
Received art materials from Zart worth $2,500



Jan Liesfield
Mooroolbark East Primary School, VIC

The Crow Tree
lino print
(50 x 40cm)

“Journeys through landscapes, both locally and overseas, is what inspires me to create an artwork. In my prints, I try to depict these scenes in a stylised manner, hopefully evoking a sense of place, without being literal copies of them.
I love to use mark making and depict the landscape in layers, from close up to the far distance, manipulating the view in such a way as to include as much detail as possible. Printmaking enables me to make images that represent the shapes and forms of the landscape, the plants and birds that I see around me.”

Andrew Peachey
Redlands College, Wellington Point

Frozen in Time 1
digital photograph on gloss paper
(40 x 60cm)

My father had always worked on cars until he went blind at seventy years old. His workshop was left exactly as he had used it. Nothing was moved until his death at ninety. Termites had eaten away at parts of his workshop. The nest was found in the hollow of a Besser brick. Long empty, it too was an artifact of diligent work. Just as the termites had secretly eaten away at his workshop so too the disease had quietly eaten away his vision.

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY / NORTHERN TERRITORY

Korin Lesh
Millner Primary School, Millner

All That is Solid Melts into Air
crate, balloon, acrylic-sheet, dichroic film, light
(200 x 200 x 200cm)

We are living with the hangovers and consequences of industrialisation and commercialisation that began during Modernity. All that is solid melts into air (2020) explores how we are not separate to the plastic materials of our creation, proliferation and usage. We are literally and ethically entangled with them. We may prefer to think we are objective observers from a distance, but actually we coproduce each other and everything is inter-connected. We are not disconnected from the environments we build and inhabit. We might stand aside of the crate, balloon, acrylic sheet, dichroic film and electrical light that All that is solid melts into air (2020) applies, but we are never separate from them.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Melanie Crawford (Higgins)
Immanuel College, Novar Gardens

Meraki
acrylic on canvas
(102 x 76cm)

Meraki (Greek) means to put “something of yourself” into what you are doing, whatever it may be. This abstract painting is about the complexity of life and its constant state of change and evolution. ‘Meraki’ is part of my ‘Valtari’ series of works, a homage to the music played in my studio when I am painting. For me, art is about connection, an expression of the journey of life and the offering of a moment of communication between viewer and artist. Layers of texture, drips, welcomed mistakes and the travelling of paint build the stories of my paintings. My process reveals, conceals, and re-examines what we define as beauty like collecting evidence of life lived over time; the peeling of paint on walls and the hidden potential residing in discarded remnants. I am fascinated by the beauty found in organic marks made naturally without overthinking or correcting.

TASMANIA

Romany Best
Hobart College, Mount Nelson

Red Dress
oil on canvas
(114 x 71cm)

As a child I refused to wear the clothes my mother chose for me. I did not listen either. At the time it seemed inconsequential and it was many, many years before I understood the ramifications of those choices. I listen carefully now but the damage has been done.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

P. James Bryans
Melville Senior High School, Melville, Perth

50
digital painting
(50 x 70cm)

P. James Bryans is a printmaker, specifically screenprinting, as well as creating mixed media paintings, drawings and 3D printed objects.
He also undertakes commissions, creating hand produced, limited edition screenprints for artists, galleries and corporations.
Do you remember your childhood?
Do you remember what you saw?
Do you remember the feeling? The wonder, the innocence?
For P. James Bryans it was a childhood full of daydreams and wonderment. The bush, calm and secluded. The night sky with its stars and vanilla milky-way, and the thousand colours in a single blade of grass.
Growing up on an idyllic country farm, James spent his days wandering through the bush and giving his imagination free reign.
Now, as an adult, he manipulates and appropriates fragments of those times from his (embellished) memories, along with the books and ephemera of his childhood to capture those moments that we treasure and make us who we are.
His artworks have often been referred to as ‘bedtime story’ assemblages. Using themes from the 1950’s, the ‘Age of Innocence’, such as the utopian nuclear family or his own ‘Enid Blyton’-esque children, Bryans creates screenprints of innocence, purity, kitsch, nostalgia… schmaltzy!
His works, however, leave out particular detail. There are no facial features. Items that his characters are gazing in wonder at are non-existent. Like our childhood memories there is a void, an absence of detail that gets filled in by our adult self. We have to narrate the rest of the story. Coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections occur, leading to surprising analogies.

NEW SOUTH WALES

Kate Stehr
Kiama High School, Kiama

The Brush
timber, branch, natural fibre
(120 x 78 x 15cm)

“Kate is an artist based in the coastal town of Wollongong. Her works are predominantly three-dimensional, with each of her practices informing the others.
Her current series of works looks at creating scribing tools from timber both found and carved, along with a variety of natural sourced materials.
This large scale piece invites the audience to imagine creating expressive, gestural marks. As a scribing tool it is unwieldy but forces to user to ‘let loose’ in giant, calligraphic sweeps.

VICTORIA

Jan Liesfield
Mooroolbark East Primary School, Mooroolbark

The Crow Tree
lino print
(50 x 40cm)

Journeys through landscapes, both locally and overseas, is what inspires me to create an artwork. In my prints, I try to depict these scenes in a stylised manner, hopefully evoking a sense of place, without being literal copies of them.
I love to use mark making and depict the landscape in layers, from close up to the far distance, manipulating the view in such a way as to include as much detail as possible. Printmaking enables me to make images that represent the shapes and forms of the landscape, the plants and birds that I see around me.

Dennis Lee
Marist College, Eastwood NSW

Nurture, Hope, Belief
acrylic on canvas
(91 x 198cm)

This series of paintings was born out of a single event; evoking different responses from those closest to me.
A broken elbow; three surgeries and months of rehabilitation – and throughout it, the uncertainty of whether the artist in me would re-surface.
But perhaps, this event only made clear what I’ve known, in that very moment, my whole entire life. My mother, the Nurturer. My wife, the one who Believes. My daughter, the reason for Hope.
And though the expression of their loves had been vastly different, their warmth and joy were constant – covering me in moments of self-doubt. “Can I pray for your elbow, Daddy?” the words of my daughter, whom at the time was in the midst of awaiting her own surgery sought me in the darkness and led me to this artwork.

 
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