Toby Raine Wins first NZAAT Emerging Artist Award

Toby Raine Wins first New Zealand Affordable Art Trust Emerging Artist Award

Elam School of Fine Arts graduate Toby Raine is the first winner of the New Zealand Affordable Art Trust’s (NZAAT) Emerging Artist Award. Toby, who was selected for the award by the Elam faculty, receives $3,000 from the NZAAT and has the opportunity to exhibit up to three works at this year’s New Zealand Art Show.

The executive director of the NZAAT and New Zealand Art Show Carla Russell said, “Toby is a deserved winner of our first Emerging Artist Award. I understand that he has been a great student and participant in the life of the Elam School of Fine Arts and we are very much looking forward to seeing his work exhibited at the show in Wellington in August.”

Toby describes his art as a rule-based painting exploration of the disillusioned nostalgic image.

The recently announced awards were established by the NZAAT, in conjunction with the country’s leading tertiary schools of art, to recognise and reward emerging New Zealand artists. Each participating art school: Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland; School of Fine Arts, College of Creative Arts, Massey University, Wellington; University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts, Christchurch; and Otago Polytechnic’s School of Art, Dunedin, is able to select one of their students as an Emerging Artist Award recipient.

Toby recently graduated from Elam with a Master of Fine Arts with first class honours. His work has won recognition as a finalist in the 2011 Wallace Art Awards, overall winner of the 2010 Rob Thomas Auckland Art Challenge, 2010 Henrietta and Lola Anne Tunbridge Watercolour Scholarship Winner, and 2010 Denise Gerard Scholarship Winner. Toby has also been selected as a finalist in the 2012 Glaister Ennor Art Awards, which take place in June.

The 2012 NZAAT Emerging Artist Awards came about through the generosity of a New Zealand Art Show patron and NZAAT trustee, Wellingtonian Richard Nelson.

“We are fortunate that Richard, an avid art collector and patron of the New Zealand Art Show, donated $12,000 so the NZAAT could establish these awards. We intend that the Emerging Artist Awards become an ongoing part of the New Zealand Art Show. To that end, the NZAAT will seek support from individuals and organisations to ensure that we can continue to acknowledge the talent of emerging artists like Toby,” Carla Russell said.

This year’s New Zealand Art Show runs from Friday, 3 August to Sunday, 5 August in Wellington’s TSB Bank Arena on Queens Wharf.

ENDS

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