EDDIE CHECKS IN FOR TOP TASSIE ARTS PRIZE

SPENDING endless nights in hotel rooms around Australia for work has led a Hobart photographer and artist in the direction of a new series that has claimed a coveted Tasmanian art prize.

Eddie James, who works from Good Grief Studios and tours the country as a lighting and sound technician, claimed top gong in the annual Women’s Art Prize Tasmania for her piece Room 18, 2021.

James said Room 18 would be the first in a photographic series of hotel rooms, titled Vacancy, she is working on.

“When I’ve been touring, I’ve needed to make my practice compact because there’s not a lot of time, so when travelling I’ve had an instant camera and allowed myself to take one shot in these spaces,” she said.

“The series is very much about the idea that. While it’s quite isolating when in strange places, the hotel room is also the sanctuary, it’s your comfort space.”

James said she was in disbelief to have won the $15,000 Trawalla Foundation Acquisitive Prize at her first attempt.

The judging panel was unanimous in its choice of Room 18, organiser Rants Arts said.

“In this work, Eddie James offers a multitude of narratives in a soft-focus ambiguous world. Room 18 is a strong well-conceived work with a timeless quality using the body as a disrupter in a transitory, illusory and disquieting space,” the panel concluded.

Hobart artist Jo Chew won the $1500 Zonta International Area 5 Emerging Artist Prize with her piece Growing Blind 2022.

The exhibition of finalists will run at Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum until July 17, before touring to Devonport and Moonah.