Konica Minolta Redlands Art Prize 2018

Extreme prejudice

Guest Curator, Nike Savvas

“As curator for this year’s Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize I have selected artists whose approach to practice evidences a discriminating, uncompromising and highly individualist approach to art making and models of practice. In a cultural climate beset by hype, hits, corporatization and swinging social agency, the next iteration of this exhibition titled Extreme Prejudice seeks to highlight the personal and critical imperatives that belie and drive such single-minded approaches to practice. For my own part, I deem the artists I have chosen as artists’ artists in that they are both strong artists and great exemplars. At their core lies a resolute philosophy of mindful intent, method and focus on studio outcomes over and above other concerns. These are artists whose creative processes and enduring models for practice have not been compromised over time.

 The role of curator for 2018 also gives me the opportunity to steer and distill these interests into a more specific point of focus. In 2018 the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize will reflect on a range of material, perceptual, conceptual, political, strategic and subjective developmental approaches with which to address painting. Painting - both as a classifying term and a discipline, continues to provoke serious and pertinent questions about the foundations on which past and current conventions are based. It has the potential to question beliefs and, as history has shown, to alter paradigms. With such a diverse body of work and studio methodologies I believe this exhibition will present an opportunity both timely and rare for challenge and reflection.”

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Interview with N. Savvas, ‘The Golden Mean’ online: https://thegoldenmeanagency.com/redlands-konica-minolta-art-prize/

Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize 2017, 27 March – 20 May, installation view, images courtesy NAS Gallery, photo: Robin Hearfield