Hornsby Art Prize 2023

This painting is about the condition of a young musician. Her fanbase is infatuated by her aura during live performances, where she both seduces them and rejects their interest. Her normal, private self is also held captive to their desires. This strange audience seems to require her attention.

So that our daughter could study for the HSC in comfort at our kitchen table, I took my artwork outside in the winter school holidays. Not only did this provide a fresh setting for a still life but it meant I could surreptitiously keep an eye on her dad. He’d just had surgery and instead of resting decided he should get out the chain saw to chop up a fallen tree. Those pieces of timber were too big so he got the axe and cut them into manageable pieces for the wood fired stove. Then he found more jobs to do.

“The opaque is not the obscure, though it is possible for it to be so and be accepted as such. It is that which can not be reduced, which is the perennial guarantee of participation and confluence. As far as my identity is concerned, I will take care of it myself. That is, I shall not allow it to become cornered in any essence; I shall also pay attention to not mixing it into any amalgam. Rather, it does not disturb me to accept that there are places where my identity is obscure to me, and the fact that it amazes me does not mean I relinquish it.” - Edouard Glissant

‘Night Flower’ is a second edition of my large-scale sculpture ‘Gloria’s Nightly Dance’. Her face was re cast and re sculpted into a new form. She was then molded and casted again in forton stone. Dried flowers where hand layered into clear resin and stone during the casting process to bring across the feature nature element. The sculpture was then painted with fleshy coloured pan pastels and a clear resin was applied over the whole form to give it a high shine appearance and bring it to life. This work depicts the next transformation of this series whereby she is transforming back into a surreal natural animal form.

I found out a bit over a year ago that my transplanted kidney is in end stage kidney failure and that the inevitable next step in my healing journey will be starting dialysis soon until another donor match can be found. My health issues have always had a deep and intertwined influence on my visual work. It sparked a deep fascination with the complex structures, formations and intricate details found throughout the human body and in all organic biology. Naturally, my art became a place for me to escape to and somewhere I could channel my deepest thoughts, feelings and emotions, a cathartic release which has felt like a lifeline for me through my darkest moments.

‘Guide to Grow a Kidney’ is my inner subconscious imagining the currently unavailable, how amazing would it be to be able to grow myself a kidney and change the impending reality I'm facing.

My work attends to the everyday. I attempt to render the material of the world with a solemn dignity and purpose. I endeavour to capture people as they pass by and lift them outside their everyday reality. I take a slow laborious look; I measure ever angle and every form and render these planes into sculptural surfaces. In the long traditions of printmaking, I try to find a contemporary Life.

Art has an ability to bring the past, the present, and the future together in a way that rational and historical linearity cannot do. My work conflates the now –the humility of walking along the street, the light and shade of the harsh Australian sun. I want the viewer to slow down, to be mindful, to the beauty around us always and the special nature of individuals that we pass without care.

Joseph de la Hoyde is a Sydney based multimedia artist whose visual arts practice centres around photography as a vehicle to distil a collage of collected forms. Drawing inspiration from 18th century Romanticism and Medievalism, Joseph’s work ambles between darkness and light, converging ethereal forms, vast, haunting natural landscapes, and intimate visions of mortality. Linked with a ritualistic connection to the natural world, Joseph’s current body of work examines how the ideologies of old belief systems transgress modern forms, celebrating life through the lens of death. His collages of curiosities and sculptural works use such things as preserved insects and ossified animal remains found in various natural settings throughout his travels around Australia, telling stories and paying homage to the imprint the soul leaves on the physical as well as to the aesthetic beauty of our underlying forms.

This painting depicts a male and female Gang-gang cockatoo, resting late afternoon before the storm hits, The male with his brilliant scarlet face and head crest. I used techniques such as airbrushing to build up layers in the background, adding more details in the foreground, to draw the eye forward to the birds. This painting is a mixture of acrylic airbrushing, painting, and pencil/pastel work.