It’s ten years since the Wangaratta Art Gallery presented the first jazzART Awards and jazzART NEXT Youth Awards in support of the annual Wangaratta Festival of Jazz.
This wonderful exhibition provides an opportunity for visual artists to explore music as a theme in their work. Sixty artists will be competing for the $1000 award with a range of artworks that show an amazing diversity in style and media. Everyone looks forward to seeing the incredible mosaic works by regular participant, the talented Aly Karazija, who incorporates mirrors, beads and stainless steel rod into her large scale creations.
A highlight of this year’s exhibition will be an entry by another enthusiastic participant David Godkin, who has entered a collaborative work. ‘Mumblin Dave Godkin and the Rhythm & Blues Revue Orchestra’ comprises 22 artists who hail from as far as Italy, NSW and Victoria. They all took up a challenge thrown their way by David to create a self-portrait along with a visual interpretation of a jazz or blues song.
David explains; “There are many famous Jazz and Blues names like ‘Cannon Ball’ Adderly and ‘Screamin’ Jay Hawkins so we have all come up with an AKA for the occasion. We’ve got ‘Decibel’ Deb Tully on trombone, Pam ‘Toots’ Fordham on alto sax, to name a few. This work is designed to be interactive so we will provide extra art materials for viewers who can draw their own response to a list of Jazz/Blues songs to add to the installation.”