The fact an everyday object, such as a flower, can hold significant emotional importance and trigger memories forms the inspiration behind most of Sally Anderson’s work, including her winning entry in this year’s Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship.
“Everyone has stories attached to things,” the 27-year-old Sydney artist said. “I’m fascinated by the brain and cognition and how we hold emotional weight within certain objects. It’s so interesting to me how objects or landscapes can hold memories and how those memories can change over time; it’s not fixed.”
Just one day after opening her first commercial solo exhibition in Sydney, artist Sally Anderson has won the 2017 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship.
The 27-year-old was awarded the prize, a three-month residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris and $40,000 in living and travel expenses, for her painting Dilling's Bromeliads with Gullfoss Falls, an intriguing pairing of landscape and still life.
Sally Anderson (left) with Wendy Whiteley.
Photo: Kate Geraghty
"What drew me immediately into Sally's work is the freedom and clarity in her use of paint," said guest judge, the Australian painter Ildiko Kovacs.
"Beautiful areas of abstracted shapes, alongside her use of the figurative, sit comfortably and feel coherent. There is a naturalness in her ability to marry the two."
The travelling art scholarship was established by Brett Whiteley's mother Beryl in 1999 and is open to emerging artists aged between 20 and 30.
In its 19th year, the prize allows the winning artist firsthand experience of Europe's dynamic contemporary art scenes while simultaneously immersed in art history and culture, an opportunity Brett Whiteley had when he won the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship aged 20.
