Art & Australia Contemporary Art Award

Art & Australia Contemporary Art Award

The Melbourne-based artist Laith McGregor, 34, whose work crosses the mediums of drawing, painting, sculpture and video, has as been announced as the Summer 2011 recipient of the Art & Australia/Credit Suisse Private Banking Contemporary Art Award. Tete blue, 2011, a sculptural bust of oil paint on modelling clay, portrays McGregor’s signature obsession with beards and will appear on the back cover of the Summer 2011 issue of Art & Australia.

‘I feel honoured to be part of an amazing collection of artists who have established a prominent position in the magazine’, McGregor says. ‘For me, it’s always been the first port of call when I grab the latest copy of Art & Australia: who’s got the back cover? Always an eclectic and valuable source of contemporary Australian art, I look forward to being part of that journey.’

McGregor epitomises a new generation of multimedia artists who have shaken up more traditional artforms such as drawing, all the while embracing them. The popularity of his biro drawings has been affirmed with recent appearances in important survey exhibitions such as ‘Freehand: Recent Australian Drawing’ (2010-11) at Melbourne’s Heide Museum of Modern Art and ‘New Psychedelia’ (2011) at the University of Queensland Art Museum in Brisbane.

For more information on the award visit www.artandaustralia.com.au/emergingartists.asp

(image credit: Laith McGregor, Veilen Dank, mein Damen und Herren!, 2011. Biro and pencil on paper, 195 x 150 cm. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf Fine Art, Sydney.)