Artist makes her mark in print with $20k prize

Nicol Sanders-O'Shea spent six months creating her winning prints. Photo / George Novak

Printmaker Nicol Sanders-O'Shea has won $20,000 for two of her prints.

The mother of two took out the Supreme Award in the Waikato Society of Arts New Zealand Painting and Printmaking 2015 Awards which was announced earlier this month.

Her two prints were selected from more than 360 other pieces of artwork.

Mrs Sanders-O'Shea said she had been very excited when the award was announced.

"I was not expecting the award at all but as you do, you think maybe you can try for it.

The two prints depicted a 9-year-old girl with a birthday cake and two school boys fighting with birds flying in the background.

"They are based on personal aspects of my life but also on my memories of childhood," she said.

"For the parents, birthdays are quite a big deal, particularly these days. But also growing up they are a very strong memory too, so often those memories conjure up ideas of anxiety but also happiness at the same time. The work is a duality of those two emotions."

Mrs Sanders-O'Shea said the two pieces took at least six months to create working from her garage studio, including late nights and several weekends.

"Creating stencils and printing layer upon layer of colour elements and illustrations to get the two works to balance and work together as one."

Mrs Sanders-O'Shea said she enjoyed printmaking over other art forms.

"I have done a lot of digital work in the past. But I enjoy not being in front of a computer or a keyboard and actually getting my hands dirty.

"I enjoy the direct nature of screen printing and you can manipulate images reasonably easily and build them up on to the surface."

Mrs Sanders-O'Shea first started printmaking during her first degree at AUT in 1991; she has had her work exhibited in numerous galleries and won other numerous awards. She is Bay of Plenty Polytechnic's Bachelor of Creative Industries degree programme co-ordinator.