Well-known Broken Hill Artist John Hart – eldest son of famed artist Pro Hart – has been selected as a finalist in the prestigious Dobell Drawing Prize.
First awarded in 1993 by the Art Gallery of NSW along with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation (SWDAF), for 20 years the annual Dobell Prize for Drawing has encouraged excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship among Australian artists.
In 2019, building on the legacy of this respected award, the National Art School partnered with the SWDAF to produce the inaugural Dobell Drawing Prize.
This new iteration of the Prize celebrates technical skill, innovation and expanded definitions of drawing.
Mr Hart said the inspiration for his work is influenced by images from his childhood taking tours of mines and seeing the processes involved.
“I was struck by the brutalist architecture of these industrial sites, and I thought how could I refer to them in a drawing without actually representing them as such, but get the feeling of the industry, of the buildings, of the pipes, of the tanks.
“All I’m doing is trying to break it down and just get the essential elements that occur and capture them without actually describing what the thing is, I thought that eventually came together quite well.”
Spending four years in Adelaide, he gained a Visual Art degree with honours in painting in 2000, which was, he said, a great experience and it taught him so much.
“It opened up so many possibilities, I tend to paint more than I draw but what I like about drawing is it is a way of seeing.
“You don’t truly look at something until you try to describe it on paper.”
The piece chosen as an entry in the Dobell is quite a departure from his usual art practice of tonal realism at a photographic level.
Mr Hart said that to draw and break it down and undo that need to be super representational has been a bit tricky.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever done is not actually know what the outcome will be, where when you are doing tonal realism, I know exactly what the outcome will be.
“Drawing and this sort of experimentation scares the hell out of me.
“I was amazed [to become a finalist] it’s quite competitive, I sent off the submission and didn’t really think too much more about it then I got an email that I was one of the finalists.
“I thought oh my God! I am happy that I got this far, there are some absolutely Olympic level artists as finalists.
“Being recognised by one’s peer is the greatest honour, I don’t expect to win it, but I’m thrilled to have gotten this far,” he said.
