IHC Art Awards: Charlize Wilson is the People’s Choice

Charlize Wilson is the People’s Choice with Looking Out from the Inside

Manukau City artist Charlize Wilson has won the 2018 IHC Art Awards People’s Choice Award for her work, Looking Out from the Inside.

Looking Out from the Inside was selected as the favourite from the 30 finalists in this year’s IHC Art Awards, receiving a whopping 3,129 votes - an unprecedented number of votes for any winner of the People’s Choice category.

Olivia Wynn’s hand formed bowl, Bubble Bowl, came in second with 2,964 votes, closely followed by Isaac Tait’s abstract work, Illusion, which received 1,394 votes in total.

Looking Out from the Inside is an abstract work portraying a person sitting a chair looking out from the inside. The piece was created using acrylic paints on canvas.

Charlize will be presented with the People’s Choice Award and her prize of $1000 on Thursday 26 July at the IHC Art Awards gala evening at Shed 6, in Wellington. At the same time, the winners of the top three prizes for the 2018 IHC Art Awards will also be announced and all 30 finalist artworks auctioned, with all proceeds going directly to the artists.

Ends.

About the IHC Art Awards

The IHC Art Awards provides artists with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to have their talent recognised, their voices heard and to sell their work. We get hundreds of entries every year with art selling well and some artists going on to exhibit nationally or internationally.

The national finals of IHC Art Awards showcase the 30 strongest examples of work from a field comprising hundreds of artists.

The Art Awards started in 2004 and the first national exhibition of finalists was held at the Britomart Centre in Auckland from a pool of nearly 300 entries. In 2005 there were 14,000 visitors to the national exhibition at The Dowse in Lower Hutt. By 2006 the number of entries had doubled to more than 600 and by 2007 there were more than 700 – still the highest number so far.

With each Art Awards event, participation has widened and community recognition of the artists has increased. Some of the artists have developed a following among buyers and a number have exhibited locally, nationally and internationally.

The IHC Art Awards are open to all New Zealanders with an intellectual disability, age 13 or over, regardless of whether they use IHC or IDEA services. The artworks traditionally cover everything from sculptures, installations and textile art, to painting and drawing.

To learn more about this year's IHC Art Awards, head to www.ihc.org.nz/art-awards-2018

The major sponsor of the IHC Art Awards is the Holdsworth Charitable Trust.

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