Filmed during the inaugural year of the Ramsay Art Prize, Making a Mark is a chronicle of passion and creative trailblaz | dG1fQjhZcXRsZ2pJUUU
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I say to young artists, get the work right and it will lead to things.
00:06People respond to intensity and concentration and thought.
00:12In Australia, it's incredibly difficult to be a mid-career artist.
00:18Whatever I make in that year, I have to put at least half of that back into the practice,
00:22so I'm living off, like, the smell of an oily rag.
00:26You feel very sad, you know, and very alone making it.
00:30You need to be able to take rejection constantly.
00:34I don't think that any artist has ever followed in exactly the same path of another artist.
00:39How are you going to get your voice heard? How are you going to get your work out there?
00:43I don't know any other way of being, really, if that makes sense.
00:47Yeah, sometimes I pretend that I'm a caring person.
00:57This prize, which is looking at some of the best work by people under 40 in Australian art.
01:03I definitely have, like, a love-hate relationship with art prizes, I think.
01:07You know, it puts you against people you respect and you admire.
01:10They're me. They're all me. They're all versions of me, but none of them is me.
01:14I think there's something really amazing about what it actually means, metaphorically,
01:19to take a cigarette and to butt out on someone's culture or butt out on someone's head.
01:24I have my say. This is bigger than me now.
01:28It's not subjective. I mean, of course, as judges, you're drawing on decades of experience in the art world,
01:33so these are informed decisions.
01:36I would be very lucky if I won. Everyone would be very lucky if they won.
01:42It's not about the money, to me. It's, like, I achieved my goal.
01:54I'm a caring person.