The Art Gallery of New South Wales is delighted to announce that Australian artist Kate Scardifield is the recipient of the 2019 Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship.

The Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship provides Scardifield with a three-month residency at the Dr Denise Hickey Memorial Studio in Paris and a $25,000 stipend for living and travel expenses associated with the residency.

This year the scholarship was judged by Jackie Dunn, special exhibitions curator and Lisa Catt, assistant curator of international art at the Art Gallery of NSW. Dunn said that scholarships and international residencies are invaluable to young artists.

“The Art Gallery of NSW and the Eva and Tom Breuer Foundation have partnered to offer a fantastic opportunity for a young female Australian artist. Kate will be able to dedicate three months to researching and making new work at a studio in the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris,” Dunn said.

“Kate’s textile practice is unconventional and striking. Paris is a city with a robust textile history, so there is a real logic to Kate immersing herself in that during this key period in her career development as an artist,” Dunn added.

Based in Darlinghurst, NSW, Scardifield’s work spans textiles, sculpture, installation and video. Her kinetic textiles employ a range of methods including hand pleating, appliqué and dissective cutting techniques into fabric to create tessellated surfaces and malleable sculptural forms.

“I intend to use the Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship to develop ambitious and experimental new work that explores connections between the body and the sculptural properties of cloth,” Scardifield said.

“Living in Paris for three months will afford me the opportunity to engage first hand with the Sonia Delaunay textile archive at Centre Pompidou and the relational textile works of Lygia Clark that were produced in Paris. I’m also looking forward to visiting Marché Saint-Pierre, the famous market dedicated to textiles, and consulting with Atelier Lognon the acclaimed French pleating studio that combines traditional craft skills and digital technologies to sculpt fabric,” Scardifield added.

The Eva and Tom Breuer Foundation established the Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship four years ago, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of NSW, to support young Australian female artists for the purpose of travel to and study in Paris. The scholarship commemorates the late Eva Breuer, one of Australia’s most loved and prolific art dealers who made a significant contribution to Australian art for over three decades.

About the Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship

The announcement of the Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship is made each year at a special event at the Gallery that brings together the family and close friends of Eva Breuer, in remembrance and celebration of her life.

The recipient of the scholarship is chosen from one of the winners of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ existing residency scholarships that are awarded to up to ten Australian artists each year. Recipients of the scholarships stay at one of two of the Art Gallery of NSW studios at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris – either two months at the Moya Dyring Memorial Studio or three months at the Dr Denise Hickey Memorial Studio.

The Eva Breuer Scholarship provides the winning artist, a woman under the age of 35, a $25,000 stipend for travel and living expenses associated with their residency scholarship.

Studios in Paris Scholarships

The Art Gallery of NSW would also like to congratulate the following artists who have also been awarded a Studio Scholarship at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris:

• Lauren Brincat, Elizabeth Bay, NSW
• Teelah George, Cottesloe, WA
• Susan Hawkins, Manly West, QLD
• Sarah Mosca, Leura, NSW
• Nicola Smith, Potts Point, NSW
• Ella Sutherland, Potts Point, NSW
• Shireen Taweel, Punchbowl, NSW