The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, A Commemoration

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The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize was first launched on 25th August 2002 to commemorate the curator of the museum Fredrick George Waterhouse. The art exhibition allows artists from across Australia and around the globe to capture and embrace the elaborate and complex bio diversity within in our beautiful planet. The atmosphere within the exhibition was quite relaxed and focused solely on the artworks. The lighting was very subtle and the walls were painted in a simple coat of white. All paintings were hung at eye – level so onlookers could really focus their attention on the artwork. Some of the sculptures had an extra sense of emphasis in the way they cast a shadow. There were several interesting and elaborate pieces with in the exhibition some of which were: “Small Parts – Big Picture” by Terry Jackson, “Hover” by Julia Roberts and “Words Alone Will Not Save Me” by Veronica Cay.

Small Parts – Big Picture created by Terry(Theresa) Jackson a local South Australian artist was created by using graphite and coloured pencil. The picture gives onlookers an up close and personal look at an elephant. There are six separate quadrilateral panels on a white background. Each panel has a different feature of an elephant in it. There are two sizes of panel in the picture. The two in the middle are the same size as each other and the four remaining boxes are the other different size. In the boxes we can see an eye, foot, tail, ear, tusk and a layer of skin. The style in which the picture has been drawn is extremely realistic and almost life-like as if it had been photographed. There are only two colours, (yellow and grey) used within the whole piece. Being an elephant the dominant colour within the painting is grey. The main focal poin...

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...nd rigidity of the coral’s structure and the violent darkness of the shadow it casts. The wire ties together the piece as a whole and creates a sense of balance with its rough triangular shape. This artwork has a very strong message associated with it being the importance of protecting our future natural environments and bio diversity particularly the world’s oceans. She believes simply saying something doesn’t mean that a person will stop pollution, cut carbon emissions, stop global warming etc. and that people need to act now because the environment has already begun to suffer. It also implies the human races ignorance towards environmental concerns and informs them to fight the battle that plants and animals couldn’t otherwise win. The success of this piece comes from its simple and manifest content and the maximal drama and urgency associated with this content.

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