Toi Tauranga welcomes you to an in conversation to celebrate the biennial winner of The Rydal Art Prize. Abby Cunnane will lead the conversation with the soon-to-be announced winner. Abby Cunnane is a curator and writer, currently director of The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space in Ōtautahi Christchurch. With artist Amy Howden-Chapman, she is co-editor of The Distance Plan, an online journal that brings together artists, scientists, and writers to discuss climate change in relation to contemporary art. She has written for a range of Aotearoa based art publications, and in 2018 completed an MPhil thesis focusing on curatorial writing and material relationships in Aotearoa. In 2021 she worked with Owen Connors (alongside artists Laura Duffy and Aliyah Winters) on the exhibition For the feral splendour, at The Physics Room.

Launched in 2017 The Rydal Art Prize is a joint venture between the Tauranga Art Gallery and Seeds Trust. It is a biennial cash prize of $25,000 that recognises a single body of work considered by a jury to have made an important contribution during the years of judging to Aotearoa painting. The artist receives the cash prize and holds an exhibition at Tauranga Art Gallery with in 12 months of the announcement.

Previous winners have been Christina Pataialii (2019) for her exhibition Solid Gold exhibited at Te Tuhi, Ayesha Green for All of my Lovers are Immigrants (Smooth my Pillow), original presented in her exhibition Wrapped up in Clouds at Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2020).

Contact: Monique Barnett