Castlemaine State Festival has announced a new partnership between philanthropic, educational and creative industries. Eucalypt Australia, La Trobe Art Institute and Castlemaine State Festival have worked together to create the Eucalypt Commission.
Image: Kylie Stillman 'Eucalypt Series' 2012 - 2016 Hand-cut paperback books
The Eucalypt Commission allows an artist to produce a new work that will be exhibited at the Castlemaine State Festival in March 2019. Eucalypt Australia is partnering with the Castlemaine State Festival to celebrate and promote the significance of the eucalypt. The Commission provides for the production of new artistic work that communicates the ecological, cultural and economic value of this most iconic Australian tree. The Castlemaine State Festival is pleased to partner with Eucalypt Australia in ways that serve mutually beneficial ends and this partnership is a perfect way to ensure the development of quality art for the Festival.
The Eucalypt Commission has been awarded to Kylie Stillman for an outdoor sculpture that symbolises the beauty of the eucalypt and the importance of 'light' to its very existence. In a nuanced balance of representation and abstraction, Stillman has proposed an evocative piece that also take into account the context of its setting, at the entrance forecourts of the Castlemaine Art Museum. The artist is highly regarded, with her work being regularly exhibited across commercial and public institutions. Layering materials and often cutting away to create forms in the void of absence, Stillman’s work reveals a skill of craft and a conceptual edge.
The Commission was an open call out and received a significant volume of entries from across the country. The judging panel consisted of key industry people, including the Director of Shepparton Art Museum Dr Rebecca Coates and Associate Professor Jacqueline Millner from La Trobe University. The Eucalypt Commission artwork will be presented as part of the visual arts program at the Castlemaine State Festival and will form part of a hub of activity and interest centred around the Castlemaine Art Museum.