Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist Sonja Drake has won the prestigious 2024 Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award, with her work Drawn in Sediment. The $10,000 non-acquisitive prize was announced at the Gala Award Ceremony event at Waiheke Community Art Gallery on Saturday 19 October.

Drake writes, “We shape the world in ways visible and invisible. There is a woundedness above and below the surface of the land. In the waterways, aquifers, the sea, and the bird, insect, plant, and animal life, human impact on our environment is not separate from us; it is part of us.”

A total of 141 entries were received from across Aotearoa, with 34 works selected for the finalists’ exhibition. This year’s selector and judge was Mary-Louise Browne. Browne writes of the selection:

“The finalists have provided us with a wonderful mix of works reflecting different sensibilities and it was no easy task to settle on the category winners. A good many of them we could say were second equal in all four categories. Art competitions have always opened to mixed reviews but hopefully viewers can look beyond this and see the inclusive spirit that underlies the exhibition. From its beginnings the Walker & Hall Award has encouraged a sense of objectivity to all the styles that at any moment make up the totality of contemporary art. The richness of the artists investigations indicates that some of the right questions are being asked at the right time resulting in a robust cross section of ideas and artworks.”

Three other Awards were presented at the ceremony. The Zinni Douglas Merit Award, named after the Gallery’s first Chairperson, was won by Waiheke artist Julia Holden for her work Doppelgänger (Cobi tfj Bosch). The Michael Evans Award for a figurative work, sponsored by The Skin Institute, was won by Sara Langdon for her work O te Ngahere. An award sponsored by Gordon Harris went to Cat Fooks for Long Otto.

The finalists this year were:

Diana Adams, Brett a’Court, Glen Armstrong, Clare Barker, Sandra Biancardi, Kirsty Black, Carol Bucknell, Hana Carpenter, Tracey Coakley, Brenna Coleman-Smith, Deborah Crowe, Antony Densham, Sonja Drake, Anah Dunsheath, Cat Fooks, Natalie Gelder, Fiona Lee Graham, Adrian Jackman, Julia Holden, Kate Horn, Stuart Jobling, Helen Keen, Tatyana Kulida, Sara Langdon, Judith Lawson, Gabriella Lewenz, Zoe Marsden, Cam Munroe, Ashlee O’Hagan, Kathy Ready, Jill Sutton, Amanda Wilkinson and Tom Wilson.

Running for 19 years, the Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award is generously supported by Walker & Hall. With a premier prize of $10,000, it is a significant award event in the New Zealand visual arts calendar. It showcases works from all over New Zealand, with Walker & Hall collecting the Award-winning work from all previous events. The award exhibition promotes excellence in art with many recipients going on to win other major art awards in New Zealand.

The exhibition is on show at the Waiheke Community Art Gallery from 18 October – 8 December 2024.