Phil Dadson granted Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award

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For public release Tuesday 8 September 2015
Artist Phil Dadson granted prestigious Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award

Renowned intermedia artist Phil Dadson ONZM has been selected as the seventh grantee of the prestigious annual Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award.

The award is for an outstanding mid-career or senior New Zealand visual artist to undertake a ten week residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California. One residency valued at up to US$24,000 is offered each year.

Mr Dadson is a sound and intermedia artist with a transdisciplinary practice including video and sound installation, sound sculpture, construction of experimental musical instruments, music composition and improvised performance. His work is held in public and private collections including at Museum of Modern Art in New York, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand and Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki.

He founded the original rhythm/performance group From Scratch in 1974, who perform with custom-built instruments made from industrial and natural materials. Mr Dadson was named Arts Foundation Artist Laureate in 2001 and made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Art in 2005.

“I aim to revisit and update a project I undertook in the U.S during a 1991 Fulbright New Zealand Award entitled SOUND STORIES, a project that involved recordings with 14 American sound artists, many based in and around the San Francisco Bay area,” Mr Dadson says.

“Additionally I look forward to the surprise factors of the residency opportunity, especially the environmental inspiration of the Headlands and Bay areas where I hope to create a body of new video & sound work.”

Fulbright New Zealand Executive Director Penelope Borland says a record number of applications were received this year for the Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award.

“We are honoured to have Phil Dadson as the recipient of the Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award. His work is such a unique combination of sound and visual elements,” Ms Borland says.

“It is particularly special to Fulbright New Zealand that Phil will be spending his residency revisiting the earlier work he created 25 years ago on a Fulbright New Zealand Award, having maintained a lifelong link to the United States after his Fulbright experience.”

Director of the Wallace Arts Trust, Sir James Wallace, says, “We are delighted to add such a nationally and internationally famous artist to the list of winners for the Wallace Art Awards, in this case the Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award.”

The Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award is offered by prestigious scholarships organisation Fulbright New Zealand and the Wallace Arts Trust specifically for a mid-career or senior visual artist. Administered by Fulbright New Zealand, it is part the annual Wallace Art Awards, the longest surviving and largest annual art awards of their kind in New Zealand which aim to support, promote and expose New Zealand contemporary art and artists.

Previous Fulbright-Wallace Arts Trust Award grantees:

• 2015: Sculptural and video artist Ruth Watson, Senior Lecturer at Elam School of Fine Arts at The University of Auckland;

• 2014: Photographer and digital media artist Steve Rood, Senior Lecturer in media Design at the Media Design School;

• 2013: Sculptor, photographer and film artist Steve Carr, a Lecturer in Fine Arts and Photography at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design;

• 2012: Installation artist Brydee Rood;

• 2011: Painter, drawer, sculptor and animator Mark Braunias, a Lecturer in Design and Visual Arts at Unitec; and

• 2010: Photographer, sculptor and video artist Richard Maloy.

ENDS

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