The Art Gallery of Ballarat hosted the Guirguis New Art Prize award ceremony recently, with Melbourne’s Yhonnie Scarce taking home the $20,000 prize for her work, The More Bones the Better. The installation, made up of six medical beakers, hand blown glass and tubing, the work has been described as haunting and delicate, a culmination of her research into the colonization of Australia.
“The winning work by Yhonnie Scarce captures the sensitivity to materials she displays throughout her artistic practice.” Simon Maidment, the Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the NGV has said. “The blown and shattered glass elements are a delicate contrast to the shocking and little discussed histories of Aboriginal exploitation and abuse in the name of science in Australia.”
Scarce’s work was selected as the winner from a pool of 60 artists and a final shortlist of 14. The More Bones the Better is showing at the Art Gallery of Ballarat until May 14th.
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