Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition 2023 HSAA Award

Photo: Jack Fenby

Congratulations to Flinders University graduate artist Erin Renfrey who is the 2023 winner of the Hill Smith Art Advisory Helpmann Academy HSAA award for $5,000 cash awarded to an artist working in the traditions of painting, drawing or print.

Erin Renfrey is an illustrator currently based in Adelaide, South Australia. Working traditionally in water colour and gouache, Erin’s work focuses heavily on magic realism, exploring the mixing of material reality with imagination thus imparting the fantastical as a normal aspect of everyday life. She creates paintings through a meticulous layering process on thick, textured paper.

Intergalactic Friendships of the Future, Watercolour, gouache on paper, Dimensions variable. Image: David Hume

Movements like retro-futurism focus on the aesthetic appeal of the future, where technological progress is framed as an achievement solely for the sake of humanity. Erin’s work imagines a utopian future in which nature is imperative to earth’s prosperity. This work harnesses magical realism and anthropomorphism to personify and envision nature and humankind as companions, while leaning into her own hopeful vision for the future. Erin wants the viewer to imagine the world they want to live in, no matter how distant that world may seem, as optimism is a powerful tool in the face of global conflict and tension.

HSAA congratulates all Helpmann Academy 2023 graduates. Visit the exhibition currently on display at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental Gallery until 6 May.