$20,000 Olive Cotton Award winner announced

By Mike O'Connor | 20 July 2023

Sydney photographic artist Gerwyn Davies has won the prestigious Olive Cotton Award for 2023. 

Gerwyn Davies (b.1985) Replica 2023 archival pigment print. Acquired as the Winner of the 2023 Olive Cotton Award. Courtesy the artist. Gerwyn Davies is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane; Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney/ Berlin. Courtesy the artist.
Gerwyn Davies (b.1985) Replica 2023 archival pigment print. Acquired as the Winner of the 2023 Olive Cotton Award. Courtesy the artist. Gerwyn Davies is represented by Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane; Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney/ Berlin. Courtesy the artist.

Davies’ Replica was selected as the winning portrait from a field of 72 finalists. Davies is the 12th artist to win the acquisitive Award, which was first presented in 2005 and comes with a $20,000 prize. 

A single judge chooses the winner in the annual competition named after the pioneering photographer, with this years' judge curator and critic Dr Daniel Mudie Cunningham noting that ‘hiding is not something we associate with portraiture. A conventional portrait requires a subject’s presence and disclosure to connect with the world’. Gerwyn Davies is keenly aware that revelation is central to portraiture and photography, and in Replica he engages with queer visibility politics to interrogate what it means to be seen and unseen, to appear and disappear.

Davies' image was partially created with the use of AI.

"Camouflaged within an inventive tableau made from costuming, props, and partially harnessing new AI technologies, he creates a clever and joyous image that speaks to art history and narratives of place and time, with conceptual and aesthetic rigour”, added Cunningham.

Davies is no stranger to the competition, with his entry Float selected as a finalist in 2021 and also winning the Director’s Choice.

This year, the Director’s Choice, selected by Tweed Regional Gallery directory Susi Muddiman, was awarded to Ferne Millen’s No Labels Required, a portrait of Dr Todd Fernando, a queer Wiradjuri man, and Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQ+ Communities.

Ferne Millen (b.1978) No Labels Required, 2023 C-type print. Acquired as the Director’s Choice of the 2023 Olive Cotton Award. Courtesy the artist.
Ferne Millen (b.1978) No Labels Required, 2023 C-type print. Acquired as the Director’s Choice of the 2023 Olive Cotton Award. Courtesy the artist.

Visitors to the Olive Cotton Award exhibition at the Tweed Regional Gallery can cast their own vote in the People’s Choice Award, with the image with the most votes winning $500.

The exhibition will run until Sunday 24 September 2021. Entry to the exhibition is free. Find out more here.