More than 600 artists representing a mix of medium and styles entered the 62nd Fisher’s Ghost Art Award.
But in the end the judges chose a video installation and opera as the 2024 Open award winner.
It’s the third video installation to win the top prize in the past decade.
Margaret and the Grey Mare (2024) by Katy B Plummer picked up the $50,000 prizemoney, with the winning entry now part of the Campbelltown City Council art collection.
Margaret and the Grey Mare contains music by ARIA award-winning composer Sally Whitwell, and it is performed by Plummer, her sister Margaret Plummer (currently a Vienna state opera soloist), Michael Honeyman and Sarah Jessica Carpark.
The project explores the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence as oracle, witchcraft as an ambivalent feminist framework, and the troubling gifts passed down through lineage.
It was produced in collaboration with filmmaker and video artist Kuba Dorabialski.
Margaret and the Grey Mare is an opera, and a fever dream about an opera. It’s also a dress rehearsal for an opera, and an opera written with a ghost and performed in a haunted dream-theatre.
It’s an urgent exchange between the character of Margaret (a hypothetical 17th century ancestor) and The Grey Mare, an ancient land-spirit whose name has been forgotten.
These two figures are shattered, estranged halves locked in violent intimacy: as characters, and as sisters wrestling a complex history, they move in and out of linear time, colliding with each other and the terrible weight of history.
The three judges of the award say they were quick and unanimous in their decision to award Katy B. Plummer the 2024 Fisher’s Ghost open art award and the $50,000 prizemoney that goes with it.
“Her work, Margaret and the Grey Mare, offers a unique artistic vision that is ambitious in scope and format. It showcases an artist at the pinnacle of their craft, fully confident in the language of their practice across video, performance, and installation,’’ said judges José Da Silva, Talia Smith and Angela Tiatia.
“Every aspect of this project is thoughtful and accomplished, from the cinematic storytelling to the production design, as well as the contemplative use of opera and artificial intelligence to draw connections between the past and the unknown.
“A sense of wonder and curiosity permeates this work; it is utterly distinctive, refreshing, and captivating.”
The 2024 winners in the other categories were:
Contemporary – Kalanjay Dhir and Akil Ahamat, a vanishing point (2024).
Traditional – Catherine Stait-Gardner, Still Life Objects Waiting to be Painted (2024).
Macarthur award – Lathalia Song, Lament (2024)
Aboriginal art award – Dave Doyle, Eroded (2024)
Macability – Catherine McGuiness, Good night tinker bell (2024)
The exhibition of the winners and finalists in the Campbelltown arts centre is open to the public until Friday, December 6.
