2023 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging)

The NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) profiles the breadth and dynamism of emerging contemporary artists in New South Wales.

Each year, a shortlist of finalists is selected by an independent judging panel and supported by a curatorium to develop work for a group exhibition. One finalist is awarded $30,000 to undertake a self-directed program of professional development.

For the 2023 iteration, audiences are invited to cross a series of partial thresholds and encounter six diverse practices. The exhibition moves from an engagement with the external environment through to the internal realm of the psyche. It passes through ideas of play and ritual; care, Country and intergenerational knowledge-sharing; desire, sexuality, and the body.

Nadia Odlum responds to urban space, applying their own geometric language to document playful interactions and offer prompts for movement. In her constructed interiors, Min Wong brings together forms of ritual from the gym and self-help movements to address the commodification of spirituality. Morgan Hogg creates a ceremonial space for diasporic connection, merging contemporary performance and installation practice with Cook Island tradition. Assembling material from Country, Maddison Gibbs makes visible spirits who defend and care for land and culture, calling for urgent climate action. Natalie Quan Yau Tso uses her body as material to interrogate political boundaries and displacement. EJ Son employs humour to explore personal fantasy and the erotic, unsettling the divide between public and private.

The Fellowship is awarded annually by Create NSW and has been presented in partnership with Artspace for over twenty-five years. Over the last two years, Artspace has partnered with peer institutions to present the exhibition during the major redevelopment of its home at The Gunnery in Woolloomooloo. In 2023, the Fellowship is presented in collaboration with Carriageworks.