Perpetual, as Trustee, of the Evelyn Chapman Trust together with the S.H. Ervin Gallery today announced artist Rachel Milne as winner of the 2022 Evelyn Chapman Art Award. The winning work, NEST, is an oil painting depicting the industrial workspace of the artist who is located in Newcastle.
The award provides a $50,000 scholarship for an Australian painter, male or female under the age of 45, to engender the encouragement, development and rewarding of artistic skill, through furthering the training and knowledge and skills of Australian painters.
The Evelyn Chapman Art Award was established in the memory of Evelyn Chapman (1888 – 1961), an Australian painter and first female artist to depict the devastated battle fields, churches and towns of the western front after the First World War. A respected artist, Chapman exhibited at the Salon in France but was forced to retire as a painter following her marriage. However she continued to espouse art education and practice. Evelyn Chapman’s archive including artworks, photographs and correspondence between her and her daughter is held at the Art Gallery of NSW National Art Archive.
Award winner Rachel Milne says, “This award not only gives me the financial freedom to research and work on a project that really inspires me but also the encouragement of the Evelyn Chapman judges. To be considered part of a scholarship of painters that goes back to Evelyn Chapman, the first female Australian artist to record the aftermath of the First World War battlefields makes me extremely proud. I now have time to explore the beautiful and varied interior and exterior architecture of Sydney and Newcastle and to really push my practice through research and a more ambitious approach to create a body of work that brings to light some of the more well-known and hidden spaces in these beautiful cities.”
The judges, Ann Cape, Greg Hansell and Yvonne Langshaw commented, “Rachel Milne has taken an ordinary industrial subject and made an interesting artwork. She has handled a complicated subject successfully, with a clever composition, without appearing restrained in any way. The contrast of the linear elements of the roof structure at the top of the painting are complemented by the discerning use of shapes and details at the bottom of the work. By using a single point perspective one is drawn into the painting through the layers of an interesting interior. She has used an intelligent system of light areas in the skylights to draw the eye to the doorway at the rear and into the picture.
Rachael Milne is a worthy winner of the Award and is an exemplar of skilled painterly techniques, coupled with an engaging freedom of execution. She follows a tonalist tradition with an earthy palette enlivened with touches of pure colour and we believe that the Award will provide her with the confidence to extend her practice further.
The award offers contemporary painters working in oil and tempera a wonderful opportunity and unrivalled freedom to develop their artistic practice and education. The award is important because it encourages the development of traditional techniques while helping to create a platform for contemporary artists to forge new paths and further the development of the medium in the future. The quality of the 2022 finalist works is testament to the vitality and experimentation present in the tradition today.”
Rachel Milne was selected from a finalist group of eight artists each of whom were able to submit up to three paintings and a proposal, judged by a panel consisting of artist Ann Cape, artist Yvonne Langshaw, and artist and Head of Royal Art Society of NSW Art School Greg Hansell.
The 2022 Evelyn Chapman Art Award finalists: Tsering Hannaford, Thomas Kuss, Kim Leutwyler, India Maerks, Rachel Milne, Sebastian Toast, Amber Wallis and Zoe Young.
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Featured image : Rachel Milne in 2020. Pic Karl Brandstater.jpg