Prize in Yasni Exposé of Jane Bennett

"The Hopetoun Hotel" mixed media on paper 110 x 140cm Price: $7700.00

"The Blacksmith" Oil painting on canvas 122 x 152 cm Catalogue No.: 17 Price: $7,700.00

Awarded Diploma of Arts in 1982, & Post Graduate Diploma in Professional Art Studies at C.O.F.A., University of N.S.W. in 1983. Has held 26 solo exhibitions since 1986,& been included in many selective group exhibitions. Jane received the prestigious Marten Bequest Travelling Art Scholarship for Painting in 1996 & was also awarded the 1996 Dyason Bequest by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of N.S.W., enabling her to travel & paint extensively throughout Europe & the U.S.A. for 2 years. In 1997 the Trustees of the Art Gallery of N.S.W. awarded Jane a residency for 3 months at the Moya Dyring Studio of the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, & she received a further residency at the Studio of the American Academy in Rome. Jane has been a finalist in the 1986 & 1997 Sulman Prize for Genre/History Painting, 5 times a finalist in the Dobell Prize for Drawing & 6 times a finalist in the Wynne Prize for Landscape, winning the 1990, 1995 & 1996 Pring Prize for Watercolour & the 1995 Trustees’ Prize for Watercolour in the Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of N.S.W. Jane is also the recipient of over 80 art prizes, & has completed many major commissions for government & corporate clients. Jane’s work is represented in the collection of Artbank; the National Trust; Department of Defence; University of N.S.W.; University of Sydney; Kedumba Contemporary Drawing Gallery; many Regional Gallery & Municipal Council Collections; many corporate & private collections throughout Australia, the U.S.A., the U.K., Hong Kong & Japan.

List of finalists selected for the Dobell Prize for Drawing 2006.

Since when has Surry Hills been known as Hyde Park South? Maybe since developers moved in. This week saw the developers of some ritzy new apartment building in Alberta Street, Surry Hills (now to be called Hyde Park South), put up $7000 for an art prize to "welcome a new relationship between the art community and the building industry". On Wednesday night guests gathered in the soon-to-be-demolished warehouse in Surry Hills/Hyde Park South so that the developers could announce the winner of their competition. Artists had to whip up a gem on the theme of "Evolution of Sydney". On the bizarrely eclectic judging panel was Justin Miller from Sotheby's, Jane Luedecke, Women's Weekly's Deborah Thomas, Bob Nation, architect for the project, Grahame Bond, aka Aunty Jack, Lord Mayor Napoleon Sartor (who has been described by the Premier as being "restless with creativity") and Gretel Pinninger, aka Madame Lash. Sauce wasn't sure whether Madame Lash's splendid outfit, a multicoloured rubber catsuit, was itself an entry. What an ingenious idea this whole prize-thing has been. The winning entry Jane Bennett's charcoal/acrylic Rebuilding Walsh Bay Wharves is now in the happy hands of the developers, who will be using it to grace the foyer of their new building.

Friday 20 November 2009 - Jane Bennett Sydney artist Jane Bennett, speaks about her work capturing threatened urban landscapes. The Rocks Discovery Museum is currently showing the projected exhibition History in the making: A working harbour no more featuring the work of Jane Bennett. This series of images contrasts the modern, picture-perfect destinations of The Rocks and Millers Point against the machinery of gritty, inner city industrial areas. Award-winning artist Jane Bennett is best known for her paintings of Sydney's urban landscapes. She has held 26 solo exhibitions since 1986, and has been included in many selective group exhibitions. Bennett has won more than 120 art prizes, including the Pring Prize for Watercolour in 1990, 1995 and 1996, and the Trustees' Prize for Watercolour, Wynne Prize in 1995. In 1996, Bennett received the prestigious Marten Bequest Travelling Art Scholarship and Dyason Bequest, enabling her to travel, paint and exhibit extensively throughout Europe and the US for two years. In 1997 the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW awarded her a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and she received another residency at the American Academy in Rome. Renowned for her portrayal of Sydney Harbour, it was appropriate that in 2004 Bennett received the inaugural Sydney Harbour Week Award for artistic achievement. A major retrospective of Bennett's work was the signature event of the 2006 Industrial Heritage Festival of the National Trust of Australia. Bennett's work is represented in Artbank, many regional gallery and council collections, the Department of Defence, University of NSW, University of Sydney and corporate and private collections throughout Australia, the US, Europe and Asia.

The section winners were: Integral Energy Challenge (``Shades of Illumination'' theme): Blacksmith, Eveleigh by Jane Bennett; Bruce Ferguson Open: Gallery Slaves by Georgina Trout; Representative/Tradit ional: The Long Yard III by Steve Underwood; Local Artist Liz Kernohan Memorial Acquisition: Shadowland by Ian Buckle; Watercolour: Relics of Farina by Brian Stratton; Works on Paper: Dreamstitcher by Madeleine Szymanski. The exhibition is on at the Camden Civic Centre and is open 12.30pm-5pm today, 12.30pm-6pm on Thursday and 12.30pm-4pm on Friday. Art Prize Committee chairwoman, Gaylene Feld, said artists had come from far and wide to enter this year's exhibition, including from Queensland and South Australia.

JANE Bennett has to restrain herself in art shops. She wants to buy the lot, particularly art paper. "I love buying a new type of paper and then taking it home and trying to find out what works on it - going through all the permutations. "I've done watercolours on pastel paper and pastels on oil paper; all sorts of things that I probably shouldn't," she said. "But the more you do that, the more you discover about yourself, your painting and the world. It also makes your work unique." The Holdsworth Galleries in Woollahra are exhibiting Bennett's most recent work: paintings based on Sydney's changing urban landscape. Much of her inspiration has come from the streets of Pyrmont. "I was born in Sydney. Urban landscapes seemed a very natural thing for me to paint," she said. "And so many of Sydney's old buildings are rapidly disappearing. In Pyrmont, though, you can actually see what the original landscape looked like. You can still see the bones of what was under there. You can't do that in many places. "And there are still buildings that have all kinds of unnecessary and quite beautiful features - like the tiles in around 18 different designs on the Burley Griffin incinerator and leaded glass windows in the power station." It was with an urban landscape, Night in Taylor Square, that Bennett had the first important acknowledgement of her work: inclusion in the 1986 Sulman Prize exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. "I felt that, at last, somebody actually wanted to look at what I was doing." Although she decided to be a painter when she was very young, Bennett didn't tell anyone for a long time. She didn't even study art at school until she was in Year 11. Then, her HSC completed, she enrolled in the Diploma of Art at Alexander Mackie CAE; and later in the Graduate Diploma in Professional Art Studies at Sydney's City Art Institute. She's been painting ever since, sometimes supplementing her income, like most artists, with teaching stints. She has now exhibited in more than 40 exhibitions - several of them solo. And she's won a clutch of awards, among them the 1990 John and Elizabeth Newman Pring Memorial Prize. Judged from entries that have been selected for the Art Gallery of NSW's Wynne Prize (landscape painting), the Pring Prize is awarded for the best watercolour by a woman. Bennett finds it difficult to describe her paintings. To start with, her work is varied. While it's representational and figurative, it's not really realistic; and certainly not photo-realistic. It has elements of Expressionism, elements of Realism, elements of Romanticism. "But I veer from one style to the other. I like to do that. I feel that if you try to force painting into just one specific style, you can end up with something very sterile." New Works by Jane Bennett: Holdsworth Galleries, 86 Holdsworth Street, Woollahra, until July 1. Hours: Monday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday, noon to 5 pm.