The judges full judges statement reads “Remarkable. Uneasy. Legitimate. Illegitimate. The paintings of Owen Connors are accomplished and strange, drawing on technique and sometimes classical, almost religious iconography, to portray scenes that are sometimes sensual, sometimes abject. Connors is hard to classify. It is the way his paintings escape common knowledge that puts them in a class of their own. We haven’t seen works like these before. Connors has created his own unique visual language to create searing paintings that investigate the queer experience, often from the inside out.

The jury nominates Connors for his 2021 exhibition Incubations, consisting of five double-sided tondo paintings in egg tempera. The works are all circular paintings on board, that feature trompe-l'œil still life’s on one side of scrupulously arranged food platters and more erotic and disquieting scenes of the male body on the other. You often have to look closely to ascertain exactly what you are seeing. In Libations (2021) bodily fluids flow, a man urinates beside a bed of oysters captured perfectly in ice, look closer and they are poised above the rim of a toilet. The perspectives in each tondo painting are masterfully handled, angular and odd.

Incubations had an instant impact in the national art world. It was widely discussed, an unmissable show. The affect? Of a banquet gone wrong, of sumptuous appetites, of the body’s fallible drives towards hunger and touch. Yes, these paintings are disquieting. Even icky. The food platters actually replicate viral structures, and each is housed in ‘starburst’ frames carved by Connor. The frames reference protein spikes and the food depicted in each trompe-l'œil still life replicates viral structures. It is a covid era show rendered in the relatively antique medium of egg tempera.

The jury had a tough job, many wonderful painters were discussed, but we returned again and again to Owen Connors work. They may not represent the easiest works to digest for a wide public, but Connors is utterly singular, a visionary for our time.”

Rydal Art Prize 2023 Recipient Bio:
Owen Connors (they/them)
Born Greymouth, New Zealand, 1992 (30 years)
Lives Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland
BFA (Hons), Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, 2015
Nominated for Incubations, September 2021, exhibited at Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington. They are the current McCahon House artist in residence and a finalist in the 2024 Auckland Art Gallery Walters Prize.

Judging Panel:

Serena Bentley, Tauranga Art Gallery
Serena Bentley is a curator and art writer and currently Senior Curator at Toi Tauranga. She has held curatorial positions at ACMI (Melbourne) where she was one of the lead curators on their new permanent exhibition The Story of the Moving Image and at The National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne) where she curated the organisation’s first virtual reality commission, Jess Johnson’s Ixian Gate. She has also worked in commercial galleries including Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and as Artistic Program Manager at artist development organisation Next Wave (Melbourne).

Abby Cunane, Director, Physics Room Christchurch
Abby Cunnane is a curator and writer, currently director of The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space in Ōtautahi. 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.

Nathan Pohio, Auckland Art Gallery
Nathan Pōhio (Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Tauiwi) is Senior Curator Māori at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, a founding member of Paemanu and Co-Vice President of Te Ūaka Lyttleton Museum. Pōhio is an artist and Senior Curator Māori Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. Pōhio worked at Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery from 2002 – 2021, where he curated, He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land with Ta Tipene O’Regan in a cultural advisory role; researched and co-curated Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania and Ralph Hotere: Ātete, to Resist.

Megan Dunn, City Gallery Wellington
Megan Dunn is the author of Things I Learned at Art School (2021) and Tinderbox (2017). She has written art reviews and criticism for over twenty years, and is a regular arts commentator on RNZ’s Saturday Morning with Kim Hill. She currently works as a curator for Experience Wellington.

IMAGES:

1. Libations, 2021, egg tempera on board, hand-carved lacquered ash frame
2. Greetings, you who are highly favoured! (detail), 2021, egg tempera on board, hand-carved lacquered ash frame
3. Owen Connors bio photo