Press Release - RDS Visual Art Awards
Clean sweep for NCAD at RDS Visual Art Awards
Thursday, 27th October 2016
Four National College of Art and Design (NCAD) students have received major recognition at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) Visual Art Awards.
Elaine Hoey, who graduated from NCAD earlier this year with a BA in Fine Art Media, was announced as the overall winner of the €10,000 RDS Taylor Art Award for her creation 'The Weight of Water'.
Hoey’s work is an immersive animation that interrogates the unfolding refugee crisis where the viewer wears a virtual-reality headset and enters through layers of narrative as both spectator and performer in actual and virtual space. Words and sound create an abstract visual landscape as the viewer navigates a difficult boat journey made by refugees as Europe begins to close its borders to those seeking asylum.
NCAD, Masters in Fine Art Painting graduate, Sven Sandberg and MA Art in the Contemporary World / Media graduate Michelle Hall were named as joint winners of the R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award and shared the €6,000 prize money.
Completing the clean sweep for NCAD was Aoife Dunne, BA graduate of Fine Art Media who picked up the RDS Monster Truck Studio Award for her work ‘limitless’, a large-scale installation combining sculpture, video and sound which focuses on perfection.
Commenting in the aftermath of the awards, Bernard Hanratty, Acting Director of NCAD said: ‘‘We are delighted at the news that four NCAD students have been recognised and awarded prizes for their work and I wish to express my congratulations to them and to all students who were short-listed. It’s wonderful to see NCAD students being recognised at the newly revamped RDS Visual Art Awards and this is testament to their hard work and to the work of the lecturers, tutors and the college community as a whole who support these students to achieve such outstanding success.’
The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) curatorial team invited 170 students exhibiting in end of year graduate showcases around the country to enter the competition, from which 13 students were shortlisted. Also shortlisted from NCAD were Susan Buttner (Fine Art Sculpture) and Jane Rainey (Fine Art Painting).
ENDS
Contact: David O’Donnell, DHR Communications, Tel: 01-4200580 / 086-1081139
Notes to Editors:
About NCAD
The National College of Art and Design occupies a unique position in art and design education in Ireland. It offers the largest range of Art and Design degrees in the State at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and is the only Irish university institution specialising in Art and Design. NCAD has over 1,100 full-time students and a further 450 students who take award and non-award bearing part-time classes. Further information is available at www.ncad.ie
Follow NCAD on Twitter: @NCAD_Dublin, Instagram @ncad_dublin, or Facebook www.facebook.com/NCAD.Dublin. #studyatNCAD
About the RDS Visual Art Awards
The RDS Visual Art Awards provides a platform for graduating artists as they transition from student into early professional career. The RDS appointed a team of independent curators to view the end of year degree shows in selected colleges around the country. They created a long list of artists, who were invited to apply online for the 2016 RDS Visual Art Awards. A panel of five judges selected artists from these applications for inclusion in a curated exhibition to be shown in the RDS Concert Hall from Tuesday, 25th October – Monday, 31st October.
