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Media Release

Regional Arts NSW Foundation sponsors Youth Encouragement Award at Country Energy Art Prize

Thursday 11 October 2007

THIS year the Regional Arts NSW Foundation is supporting the 2007 Country Energy Art Prize for Landscape Painting by sponsoring a $2,000 Youth Encouragement Award.

The Award was presented today at the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo by the Chair of the Trustees of the Regional Arts NSW Foundation, Meg Larkin.

"I am delighted that the Foundation is able to support young artists working in the regions through our partnership with Country Energy," Ms Larkin said.

The winner of the Award - an artist aged between 16 and 25 - is selected from the finalists in the Country Energy Art Prize competition.

The prize is provided by the RegionalArts NSW Foundation, a charitable body established in 1991 to raise funds to assist Regional Arts NSW Ltd and its network of Regional Arts Boards in their mission to build positive futures for regional, rural and remote NSW communities through the arts.

The winner of the inaugural Youth Encouragement Award is Frances Belle Parker of Maclean for her extraordinary work Beiirrinba, My Vein (forty).

The Youth Encouragement Award is the latest award in a stream of recognition for this outstanding and talented young artist. Earlier this year she was highly commended in the Bundjalung Art Award at Grafton Regional Gallery and won the Youth Award in Drawing Together at the National Archives in Canberra. In 2005 and 2006 she was a finalist in the NSW Indigenous Parliament Art Award and in 2006 she was a finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. In 2000, at the age of 18, Parker won the prestigious Blake Prize for Religious Art, making her not only the youngest winner of the prize at that time but also the only indigenous winner in the prize's 57 year history.

"I am deeply inspired by my mother's land (Yaegl land) and am fortunate to live in this beautiful part of the world," Frances said. "I wanted to enter the Country Energy Art Prize to share the beauty of my Yaegl land."

Country Energy's Managing Director, Craig Murray said the introduction of the Youth Encouragement Award added a new dimension to the highly-coveted landscape art prize.

"Providing a youth award as part of the Country Energy Landscape Prize encourages young regional artists to explore their world and cultivates the future of the arts in country and coastal areas," Craig said.

Beiirrinba, My Vein (forty) will be exhibited as part of the 2007 Country Energy Art Prize for Landscape Painting at Dubbo Regional Gallery, which is open to the public until 2 December, and at the CountryScapes exhibition at The Gunnery, Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo in January 2008.

More information | images
Contact Rachael Vincent, Communications Manager, Tel 02 9270 2504

Links
Read the about the overall prize winner on the Country Energy website here.
More general information about the Country Energy Art Prize website here.
View all the finalists' work on the Country Energy website here.

Picture
Frances Belle Parker, Beiirrinba my Vein (forty), winner of the Youth Encouragement Award at the 2007 Country Energy Art Prize for Landscape Painting, sponsored by the Regional Arts NSW Foundation.