EO Gill awarded emerging NSW Visual Art Fellowship
Image: Work by 2018 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship recipient EO Gill. Photo by Zan Wimberley.
Tempe-based artist EO Gill has been announced as this year’s Create NSW & Artspace NSW Visual Arts Fellow, the latest emerging artist to be supported by the prestigious century-old award.
The announcement was made at the opening of an exhibition of shortlisted artists which runs at Artspace in Woolloomooloo until 16 December 2018.
EO will receive $30,000 through the Fellowship and is set to use their funding to undertake a mentorship and professional development program involving working with academics and artists across Toronto, Montreal and New York to research and develop their skills in queer video-making and expand their professional network.
EO’s work was selected by our expert panel as the standout from this very talented group and I’m excited that they will use this opportunity to learn from some of their most inspirational international peers in queer video art.
The Fellowship is chosen by a panel of industry peers chaired by Sharni Jones, Manager of the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Collection at the Australian Museum.
This year’s finalists have indeed addressed some of the most urgent cultural and political issues of our time. EO Gill is an artist whose multi-disciplinary work navigates intimacy and queer identity with a delicate sense of levity.
Fellow shortlisted artists include: JD Reforma, Kieran Butler, Shireen Taweel, Marikit Santiago, Jodie Whalen, Biljana Jancic, Kai Wasikowski, Georgia Saxelby and Shivanjani Lal.
The 2018 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship exhibition will run at Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Woolloomooloo until 16 December 2018 – see more information here.
About EO GILL
EO is an artist who makes non-linear narrative, DIY situational videos with their friends (mostly non-performers) using everyday recording devices like smartphones. EO identifies as gender non-binary and explores this identity politic through their video works. Their collaborative and intuitive way of working aims to capture their own queer experience and explore queer intimacy, gender dysmorphia and queer ways of looking in the Australian suburban context in which they grew up.
EO is a core and founding member of artist collective Hissy Fit. They have developed and presented work extensively in Australia, most recently at Alaska Projects, Performance Space and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. EO has completed residencies with Banff Centre, Canada (supported by a Create NSW Quick Response grant), the Australian National Film & Sound Archive and NES, Iceland among others.
They hold a Bachelor of Arts (BA) majoring in Film and Performance (Honours Class 1) from UNSW and a Masters of Fine Art (MFA) from UNSW Art & Design (supported by an APA Scholarship).
EO received the Philip Parsons award for their Honours thesis in 2014 and received the highest result for their MFA in 2018. In 2016-17 EO was a member of the Board of Directors at Firstdraft.
Program of Activity: A mentorship and professional development program in Canada and New York
EO will undertake a professional development program in Toronto, Montreal and New York to undergo research, develop skills in video-making and expand their networks. EO will undertake two mentorships with Toronto-based academic T.L. Cowan and artist Bridget Moser and a self-directed research trip to queer video art distributors and archives throughout Canada.
In February-June 2019 they will undertake a three-month professional development program in New York and Canada, a country at the forefront of queer video practice globally, with dozens of organisations specialising in the growth and distribution of video-art and experimental film.
Published: 16 November 2018