The Winners Show featuring Kym Burke, Susannah Law and Gavi

​Featuring the three first equal winners of the 2020 Hibiscus and Bays Annual Art Awards.

Kym Burke: As an artist and in my professional life I’ve always had an interest in people and their place. Artistically this has manifested as a fascination with maps – an alternative perspective on space, place and connections. I think partly it’s genetic, my grandfather - whom I never met - worked as a draftsman for the Department of Lands and Surveys for much of his life. I hold that with some pride and some doubt – historically maps have been a powerful tool of acquisition.

Susannah Law: Susannah is an artist and teacher from the Hibiscus Coast in Auckland who specialises in figurative/ flora and fauna work. She has a Dip. Fine Arts and Dip. Teaching and usually paints portraits and historical fictional scenes of New Zealand. Her recent works are a study of extinct species such as the Huia and her interest in conservation themes continues to evolve. She uses various techniques to create marbled effects within detailed representational imagery, allowing paint to run and mix in screened areas. Also, she often produces native birds on shaped wood with completely marbled feather work.

​Gavin Chai: As a realist artist, I am interested in revitalizing the historical drawing and painting techniques to represent contemporary experiences, drawing allusions to biblical themes with subtle allegories, and to certain historical works of art that had influenced my practice. The subject matter that I work with is unfixed, and tends to shift accordingly to my experiences. Often captivated by what I saw in my immediate surroundings, my subjects can vary from interiors of a house, a hotel room, a table of things to an exterior setting with someone in a neighbourhood. I choose to paint settings that are close to home, just as Vermeer of Delft and Hammershoi of Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen. Yet, my settings are not just about the familiar, but also the imaginative and the unseen too.