At the Bottom of the Garden

The Bett Gallery Graduate Award is designed to give the recipient the opportunity to experience exhibiting in a first class commercial contemporary art gallery. The award is judged yearly in collaboration with the Tasmanian College of the Arts, and awarded when one student shows a particularly high standard of work, imagination and determination.

The winner of this award will be given the opportunity to join the Bett Gallery exhibition program, culminating in a solo exhibition with the support of Bett Gallery directors, staff and artists.

Amongst other things the winner receives curatorial support and mentorship, significant local and national exposure and the opportunity to launch their career in one of Australia’s most established commercial galleries.

Artist Statement

"I have always had an interest in the way that we connect to the environments familiar to us. Those domestic landscapes which document our daily travels through the universe and form themselves into an illustration of the everyday. Our familiarity with these places fosters a sense of sanctity, the very boundaries to our gardens cultivated and shaped as a gateway into our own, tiny paradise. The connections we have with these landscapes are expressed through the way that we “read” these spaces, a curated geography mapped by memory and the wonderful mundane rituals of the domestic day.

I begin every morning with a trudge down the paddock, and every afternoon finishes with the same. Trailing after wayward ducks and dogs, I have found myself recording the daily evolution of the green square surrounding me. All within the bounds of a wooden fence, the endless and frenetic story lines of the local flora and fauna play out around me. It is only in beginning to record these comings and goings that I have begun to realise that every patch of grass is holding a secret, hidden world of its own, if only you look closely enough."

Nicola Gower Wallis