IHC Art Awards 2011 judges

The 2011 judges included acclaimed children's author Margaret Mahy; renowned sculptor Brett Graham; and innovative printmaker Olav Nielsen.

They selected the top 30 artworks from over 360 entries for a national exhibition at the St James Theatre, Wellington, in August 2011. From these finalists they selected the four winning artworks.

Margaret Mahy

Internationally acclaimed children's author Margaret Mahy wrote her first story at the age of seven and is still writing at 75, nearly two hundred publications later. Margaret lives and writes from her home in Governor's Bay, Christchurch, and the former librarian has been a fulltime writer since 1980. Her first book published was A Lion in the Meadow in 1969 and her works has been translated into 15 languages. She was awarded the Order of New Zealand in 1993 and has won many of the world's major prizes for children's writers.

Brett Graham

Brett Graham takes complex historical and cultural ideas and abstracts them into sculptural forms. His work reflects Maori and European histories and invokes Maori sculptural traditions. His sculptural pieces, mainly in wood and stone, have formal simplicity. Brett is regarded as a leading authority on contemporary Maori sculptural traditions. His work is also featured in most major collections in the country, such as the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Auckland Gallery Toi o Tamaki.

Olav Nielsen

Olav Nielsen is a printmaker specialising in mezzotint and burnished aquatint. He says the surface textures of these evoke for him the soft darkness of sleep that surrounds the dream images that he wants to communicate. His favourite subjects are the New Zealand villa and landscape, intertwined with dream material. Olav has been working as an artist in Dunedin since 2003. His work is held in public and private collections in New Zealand and Australia, and internationally.