Remake: Emerging Artists

Remake: Emerging Artists is an exhibition that Invigorates the Wellington art scene and spins the artistic practise of ‘transformation’ – one so important to contemporary practise in this country. The 64 Emerging Artists of the exhibition, and its 157 works, are an important part of the Academy’s First Quarter Season. The Tui McLauchlan Emerging Artist’s Award is dedicated to furthering the reach and impact of emerging artists that is so vital to the continuation of a vital arts community.

Remake is an exhibition dedicated to the concept of artistic transformation, making one thing into another through personal practise and collaboration. Transformation is something that can be spun different ways – an artist can take a found object or two and make a work of art; an artist can take the materials and ‘props’ of art and make them into something they were never intended to be; an artist can take a recognised concept or idea and give it a new agenda; and artists can work with other artists to work over, yet with, their own work to create something new.

The inaugural winner of the Tui McLauchlan Emerging Artist’s Award, a cash prize of $2,000, is James R. Ford for his work Mirror #6. The inaugural judge, independent critic and curator, Mark Amery announced the winner at the opening on the 8th of February and talked about the duality of this work – its ability to be a finely crafted piece of viusal art and an anti-statement that both challenges and repels.