Scholarships
The Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology Scholarship
The CPIT Scholarship is awarded annually to a student for excellence in studies at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology.
This year's winner was Louann Sidon.
University of Canterbury Scholarship
The University of Canterbury Scholarship is an annual award to a final year student at the University of Canterbury. In alternating years the prize is open to a student in Art History and Fine Arts for excellence in their endeavour of study.
This year's winner was Tia Parker.
The value of each prize is $1,500. For more information on the awards, please send us an email at friends@ccc.govt.nz.
Friends scholarship winners
The Friends’ Scholarship winners are announced annually at the AGM.
The recipient of the Canterbury University scholarship was Tia Parker, a printmaker at the School of Fine Arts. She creates art based on themes of both personal and universal narrative.
By utilizing ideas of kiwiana and pacific iconography she engages the viewer in a weird and curious supernatural realm. Influences that have been paramount to the on going development of Tia’s studio practice include powerful imagery taken from both Butoh theatre and pacific body adornment.
Concepts that have been integral in sustaining the black magic appeal of her work include the western perception of ‘Primitivism’ and the Polynesian concept of the head as the container for the human soul.
“As I do not like to confine my work solely to the classification of printmaking, I enjoy employing the use of other media techniques from such fields as photography, sculpture and painting.”
Throughout 2008 Tia has experimented with the use of lights and lighting effects, specifically the use of neon tubes. Tia has taken her work into a slightly different direction this year.
Her interest of capturing a voodooist fantasy world within a real one, combined with the influence of B Grade Horror films has culminated in a photographic series featuring an array of cheap and creepy curios.
These dramatic theatrical stills of posed plastic skeletons and dolls show that with a little creative thinking and a bit of DIY anything can be possible, even on the tightest budget.
