KEY POINTS:
An artist obsessed with themes of domestic violence, horror movies and sport has won the main prize in this year's Wallace Art Awards.
Richard Lewer, a New Zealander based in Melbourne, received the award, valued at more than $38,000 including a six-month residency in New York, from Sir Paul Reeves at Auckland's Aotea Centre last night.
Lewer, 38, won for a painting on billiard table cloth called Skill, Discipline, Training, a work from a series and book he created in 2006. Lewer, who recently began the three-month McCahon House Residency in Titirangi, says he has "an unhealthy interest in human suffering".
His subjects have ranged from a residency in Wanganui where he listened to a police scanner each night and drew often-horrific images from what he heard to paintings inspired by movies such as The Omen and The Exorcist. The Skill, Discipline, Training series is a more benign commentary on ordinary people setting themselves sporting goals. Lewer has trained in boxing and wood chopping for "performances" in Melbourne.
Other winners last night were Heather Straka, awarded the inaugural Kaipara Foundation Wallace Trust Award, whose $20,000 value includes a three-month residency at Altes Spital in Switzerland, and Ruth Cleland, who received the Park Lane Wallace Trust Development Award, a three-month residency worth $18,000 at the Vermont Studio Centre in the United States. Matthew Couper and Liyen Chong were first and second runners-up, each receiving $2000.
An exhibition of the works by the winners and selected finalists is at the Aotea Centre Gallery until the end of September. The rest of the 525 entries can be seen at the James Wallace Trust Gallery at 305 Queen St.
