Meet the 2021
Tatiara Art Prize Judges
BEN QUILTY
Ben Quilty (b.1973) lives and works in the Southern Highlands NSW, Australia. Widely known for his thick, gestural oil paintings, Quilty has worked across a range of media including drawing, photography, sculpture and installation. His works often serve as a reflection of social and political events; from the current global refugee crisis to the complex social history of our country, he is constantly critiquing notions of identity, patriotism and belonging.
Quilty’s work has been exhibited in a number of significant national and international exhibitions including ‘Show Me Your Sexy Urbanity Fotos’, Hohenstrausenstr, Frankfurt, Germany (2004); ‘Truth and Likeness’ National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (2006); ‘Together in Harmony for 50 Years: Linking Australian and Korean Arts’, Korea Cultural Exchange Centre, Seoul, Korea (2011); ‘Trigger-Happy: Ben Quilty's Brave New World’, Drill Hall Gallery Australian National University (2013); ‘Dark Heart’ Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (2014); ‘Panorama’ Tarrawarra Art Museum (2016); ‘Painting. More Painting’ Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2016); ‘When Silence Falls’, Art Gallery of NSW (2016); ‘Charles’ Insitu, Kurfurstenstrasse, Berlin (2016); ‘Mad Love’ at Arndt Art Agency (A3), Berlin (2017) and the’ NGV Triennial’ (2017); ‘Quilty’ Art Gallery of South Australia, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Art Gallery of NSW (2019).
In 2011 the Australian War Memorial commissioned Quilty to travel to Afghanistan as Australia’s official war artist. The resulting body of work exhibited at the National Art School Gallery in 2013 received critical acclaim and went on to tour art galleries across Australia up until 2016. In 2014 he was selected as the overall winner of the Prudential Eye Award, Singapore and invited to become the first Australian to hold a solo exhibition at Saatchi Gallery in London (2014). He is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
Image: Oliva Quilty
TANSY CURTIN
Tansy Curtin commenced as Curator of International Art pre-1980 at the Art Gallery of South Australia in April 2020 after having previously held curatorial positions at Bendigo Art Gallery for more than 13 years. Originally from Adelaide, Tansy Curtin holds a Masters in Art History from the University of Adelaide and before leaving SA held positions at Adelaide Central Gallery, Flinders Art Museum and the Samstag Museum.
Tansy has curated numerous exhibitions across Australian and international art, including The Long Weekend: Australian artists in France 1918–1939 (2007), American Dreams: Twentieth Century photography from George Eastman House (2011), The Costume Designer: Edith Head and Hollywood (2017) Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits (co-curator 2019) and, in 2020, Bessie Davidson & Sally Smart: two artists and the Parisian avant-garde. Tansy co-authored with Penelope Curtin Blooms and Brushstrokes: A floral history of Australian art published by Wakefield Press in 2019.
FULVIA MANTELLI
Fulvia Mantelli is currently the Rural City of Murray Bridge Team Leader of Arts Development and Director of Murray Bridge Regional Art Gallery. With over three decades of arts sector experience as a visual arts project manager and curator, including private and public galleries and contemporary art spaces, cross-arts and cultural institutions, public art and multi-artform events and festivals.
Fulvia has held positions with the Anne and Gordon Samstag Musuem of Art, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide Fringe and Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia. She has independently curated exhibitions for Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Country Arts SA as well as worked with a range of individual contemporary artists locally and internationally in curatorial, writing and project management capacities