40,000 reasons to get your Art Awards submissions ready!

40,000 reasons to get your Art Awards submissions ready!

Queensland's much loved Rio Tinto Martin Hanson Memorial Art Awards, hosted by the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum, will start calling for entries from 6 October 2016.  

Artists from around the nation have the opportunity to take home the coveted overall prize of $15,000 sponsored by Rio Tinto, in addition to a lucrative prize pool of $25,000, thanks to the generous support of local individuals, businesses and industry, including Anderson's Auto City, Queensland Alumina Limited, Gladstone Area Water Board, Australia Pacific LNG, Gladstone Ports Corporation and McDonald's Gladstone Region.

Now in its 41^st year, the Art Awards have established themselves as a nationally recognised event, annually receiving hundreds of submissions from around Australia.  Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum Curator, Jo Duke, said, "The Awards are fabulous as they allow the Gladstone Region to see what contemporary Australia is making, both from a national, state and local perspective."

This year the Awards are honoured to bring back The John Anderson Memorial Acquisitive Award, sponsored by Anderson's Auto City.  Most displayed artwork submissions, in each of the four sections (Easel Paintings, Works on Paper, Three Dimensional & Fibre Works and Digital Works,) will be eligible for this $5000 acquisitive prize. Further details about this Award and all others can be found on the entry form brochure that accompanies the 2016 entry form.  These can both be downloaded from the Gallery & Museum's website http://gragm.qld.gov.au or collected from most Gladstone Regional Council venues, offices and libraries.

"We are exciting to be celebrating this momentous 41^st anniversary with such an enticing $40,000 prize pool and expect that artists, both local and further afield, will be eager to be involved," Jo added. "We hope everyone is getting their works ready now as there is less than a month left before we call for your submissions to be delivered to the Gallery & Museum."

All Award winners, bar The QAL People's Choice Awards will be announced 6pm, Saturday 15 October after the exhibition has been officially opened.                     

Submissions into The 41^st Rio Tinto Martin Hanson Memorial Art Awards 2016 are to be delivered to the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum between 10am - 5pm, Thursday 6, Friday 7 and Saturday 8 October 2016. Entry fee is $15 per submission. For all enquiries contact the Gallery & Museum on (07) 4976 6766 or email gragm@gladstonerc.qld.gov.au.

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