Concrete Playground

Sydney artist Lauren Brincat has been awarded this year’s Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship for her work It’s A Long Way To The Top. Brincat, who lives and works in the Inner West has made finalist a number of years, describes her practice as being interested in the crossover between rock ‘n’ roll and art; she is explores this through the motif of the drum kit. It’s A Long Way To The Top is a layered work; it’s myriad of meanings and associations are subtle, and will have you thinking for days.

The exhibition of finalists features ten artists and two artists collectives/groups and, as expected, there’s a concentration on video art and the moving image. There’s no one uniting theme, but there’s an underlying edge of humour in the work of Sydney based artists Mitch Cairns and Adam Costenoble. Costenoble’s two-part video work, in which he delves into the absurd armed only with a pair of Speedos and an oversized beach ball, is hilarious. If that’s not your speed, there’s the celebration of fine craftsmanship in Rochelle Haley’s etched mirrors, and Mary MacDougall’s delicately painted glass.