Helen Pynor wins Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photographic Award

Sydney College of the Arts PhD candidate, Helen Pynor, was announced joint winner of the prestigious Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photographic Award, hosted by the Gold Coast City Art Gallery. This is the first time that two artists have been jointly awarded the prize. The judge, Trent Parke, was unable to choose between the two artists, Glenn Sloggett and Helen Pynor, due to the high quality of their work.

Pynor’s winning work Constipation, from the red sea blue water series, reflects her continuing fascination with the porosity between mind and body, culture and biology, and body and memory. Pynor’s work explores ways to represent the seepage between these realms and the ambiguity, complexity and subtlety of their interrelations.

The images from Pynor's series are face-mounted on glass and each includes an embroidered, home-remedy recipe for a common ailment, such as ‘constipation’ or ‘head cold.’ From these remedies tumble dark threads, reaching down like hair or plumes of smoke towards a bodily organ, floating in an apparent sea of water. The images stand on the floor and lean on the wall; in this way they stand with viewers, silently reflecting back viewers’ own images on the surface of the glass. Whilst employing aesthetics of beauty and wonder, the images also suggest severance and disorientation, implying a darker undercurrent in the work.

Helen Pynor’s red sea blue water series is also on display, alongside a selection of international artists, in The Vernacular Terrain exhibition at Monash University until 19 April. Pynor is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.

Image: Detail, Constipation, red sea blue water series