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Virginia Grayson

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Virginia Grayson
Born1967
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Education
Known forDrawing
Notable workNo conclusions drawn – self portrait (2008)
AwardsDobell Prize (2008)

Virginia Grayson (born 1967), also known as Ginny Grayson, is a New Zealand-born Australian artist, and winner of the Dobell Prize for Drawing.

Biography

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Grayson was born in 1967 in Palmerston North, New Zealand. She trained in film and media studies at Victoria University of Wellington. In the early 1990s she moved to New York for a period, before moving to Sydney, and later to Melbourne.[1] She trained at the RMIT School of Art, and held an exhibition in the School's gallery in 2009.[2]

No conclusions drawn – self portrait (2008)

In 2008, Grayson was working in a studio in Melbourne. In September that year, it was announced that she had won that year's Dobell Prize for Drawing, displayed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in a competition that had 586 entries.[3][4] The competition was judged by a former Queensland Art Gallery curator, Anne Kirker.[3]

Grayson's work, in pencil, charcoal and watercolour, was titled No conclusions drawn – self portrait.[4][5] It portrays the artist standing in her studio. Grayson observed that the work reflected her "state of uncertainty" about her artistic output at that time, during which she regularly destroyed her drawings in "fits of frustration".[3] The Sydney Morning Herald arts writer Louise Schwartzkoff described the portrait as "sombre", where the subject "stares grimly into the distance".[6] When asked what she would do with the AUS$20,000 money from the Dobell Prize, she responded that she "wouldn't mind getting my ute fixed".[4]

Robert Nelson, writing for The Age, considered Grayson's drawing to be influenced by Alberto Giacometti, and "is curious and inquiring, as if always searching for the place, ratios and weight of her motif".[7]

References

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  1. ^ "Ginny Grayson". AANA Arts. 2013. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  2. ^ "Link II: School of Art Alumni Exhibition". RMIT School of Art. April 2009. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  3. ^ a b c "Virginia Grayson Wins 2008 Dobell Prize for Drawing". Art Gallery of New South Wales. 4 September 2008. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  4. ^ a b c O'Brien, Joe (4 September 2008). "Self portrait does a ute turn". The World Today. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  5. ^ "Virginia Grayson Wins 2008 Dobell Prize for Drawing". artdaily.org. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  6. ^ Schwartzkoff, Louise (5 September 2008). "Erasing grace: catch the winner while you can". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  7. ^ Nelson, Robert (23 November 2011). "Thinking along similar lines". The Age. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
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