A hand-crafted collaborative work has won the People’s Choice Award in this year’s Fieldays No.8 Wire National Art Award.
The winner was decided by votes cast at ArtsPost Galleries & Shop in Hamilton, where the exhibition is open daily until Sunday, July 2.
The award-winning sculpture, titled The Gate, uses a variety of traditional and contemporary stitching techniques displayed on an adapted farm gate. It was made by Josina Ellis, Liz Wilson, Sue Truman, Barbara Rosenberg, Sue Lynch, Marianne Lock, and Katherine Fell, known collectively as Waikato Creative Stitchers.
Wilson said the stitchers were thrilled to hear that their work had won the People’s Choice Award.
“This collaborative piece has been so much fun to work on, with each of us contributing slightly different stitch or textile techniques, but melding into a cohesive work,” she said.
“Thanks very much to the public who appreciated and voted for our piece. Also thanks to the organisers of the Fieldays No.8 Wire National Art Award. We are very grateful to you all.”
The textile components of The Gate were created from natural fibres such as wool, cotton, and jute, and the structure itself from No 8 wire. The artists’ statement accompanying the work describes it as a reflection of the farming practices of re-use and recycle, used by communities both past and present.
Now in its 26th year, the annual Fieldays No.8 Wire National Art Award competition is hosted by Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato and supported by the New Zealand National Fieldays Society (NZNFS). Artists are challenged to transform the iconic farming product No 8 wire into art and compete for a share of nearly $10,000 in prizes.
The 2023 winner was announced at the exhibition opening on May 25, with this year’s guest judge, sculptor Hannah Kidd, selecting the strikingly geometric sculpture Connectivity by Hawke’s Bay artist Ricks Terstappen.
Second prize went to Jeff Thomson and Bev Goodwin for their piece Cyclonic, and third place went to John McKenzie for 641E9372.
NZNFS chair Jenni Vernon selected In Case of Emergency … Break Glass by Heather Olesen for the Chair’s Choice Award.
