A much-loved Byron Shire character has helped carry artist Stephen Bird to the top prize in this year’s Wollumbin Art Award.
Bird won the $15,000 biennial prize for Alfred, a glazed earthenware work paying tribute to a familiar local figure he describes as ‘the Shire’s great walker’.
The work, presented on an oversized ceramic plate, has taken on added poignancy following Alfred’s death in October last year, after he was struck by a van while walking along Ewingsdale Road in Byron Bay.
Guest judge Professor Lisa Slade said Bird, an established contemporary ceramic artist, had taken the storytelling in his work ‘to a whole new level of poignancy’ by focusing on Alfred, a ‘well-known and much-loved local figure in the Byron Shire’.
The win comes from a record field of 653 entries, whittled down to 79 finalists from across the Tweed, Byron, Ballina, Kyogle, Lismore, Richmond Valley, Scenic Rim and Gold Coast.
Along with the cash, Bird receives a two-week residency at the Nancy Fairfax Artist in Residence Studio at Tweed Regional Gallery.
Lismore-based Gomeroi artist Penny Evans won the $10,000 Bundjalung Award for her textile work dhurrubuu – Follow Me, which explores disinformation and old Knowledge held on Country. The award also includes a solo exhibition at the gallery in 2027.
Byron Shire artist Pascale Bardos picked up the $5,000 Emerging Artist Award for Holding Time, a pair of large, unfired stoneware vessels. Professor Slade described the work as ‘materially and conceptually brave’.
The Wollumbin Art Award exhibition runs at Tweed Regional Gallery in South Murwillumbah until November 15.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
