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Updated: Akiko Diegel has won the 20th Wallace Art Awards paramount award for her work Cure - made of 2634 bulldog and alligator clips crafted from disprin packets, encased in a Perspex box.

It was one of seven awards, with prizes amounting to more than $165,000, presented at The Pah Homestead in the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre on Monday September 5.

Updated: Akiko Diegel has won the 20th Wallace Art Awards paramount award for her work Cure - made of 2634 bulldog and alligator clips crafted from disprin packets, encased in a Perspex box.

It was one of seven awards, with prizes amounting to more than $165,000, presented at The Pah Homestead in the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre on Monday September 5.

Diegel's work took four months to complete with each half of the clip hand-cut with a scalpel, then hand-folded and assembled together.

She explains that the use of simple materials coupled with an extravagant amount of labour is a reaction to the effects knowledge and technology has had on our lives. Rather than make our lives easier, Diegel believes they have "created a world in which stress and anxiety have become the new paradigms of our existences."

"In this brave new world, our neural and corporeal senses become suspended by chemical painkillers which blunt our normal bodily processes. Are these drugs intended to stall time until our anxieties have passed, and become a placebo that we come to depend upon to lead normal lives?"

The detailed labour is also a form of therapy for the angst of social experiences, suggesting perhaps that for Diegel, the act of making is the cure.

Akiko receives a 6 month-residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, USA.

The Awards were judged by three distinguished New Zealand artists – Philip Trusttum, Sara Hughes and Peter Gibson-Smith.

The Wallace Arts Trust received 559 entries from which 117 entries were selected as finalists. Sixty-one finalists have been chosen for the Travelling Show and the balance is represented in the Salon des Refusés.

The 2011 Winners Are:

Akiko Diegel
Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award
Akiko receives a 6 month-residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, USA.

Brydee Rood
Fulbright Wallace Trust Award
Brydee receives a 3 month-residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, USA.

Matt Ellwood
The Kaipara Foundation Wallace Trust Award
Matt receives a 3 month-residency at the Altes Spital in Solothurn, Switzerland

Bronwynne Cornish
Wallace Development Award
Bronwynne receives a 2 month-residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Vermont, USA.

Emil McAvoy
Ist Runner Up Award
Emil is awarded $2,000 cash

Anita Levering
2nd Runner Up Award
Anita is awarded $2,000 cash

Philip Dadson
Jury Award
This prize is non-monetary

The People’s Choice Award, worth $500, will be decided after the Travelling Exhibition has finished its leg at The Dowse on 4 December.

Winners and selected finalists will be chosen for the Travelling Exhibition, on show at the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre in Auckland from 6 September to 16 October 2011, and The Dowse in Lower Hutt from 29 October to 4 December 2011. A Salon des Refuses will be on show at the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre in Auckland from 6 September to 14 October 2011.

Details Of Winning Works

Akiko Diegel Cure (2011), Disprin packets, perspex, 650 x 450 x 27mm

Matt Ellwood Unconditional Love (2011) Plywood, dowel, 950 x 1100 x 1500mm

Brydee Rood Mull Ballon Wolke Kanal Projekt (2011) Intervention / live installation performance / video (created using a 3-person kayak)

*Brydee Rood won the Fulbright Award with a body of works – this image is representative of one work

Bronwynne Cornish Between a Rock and Hard Place (2011) Ceramic collage mounted on metal stand, 500 x 300 x 300mm

Philip Dadson Headstamps II: Homage to the Silk Road (2011) DVD video/sound, 5.00 minutes

Emil McAvoy Helen (2011) Archival pigment on Hahnemuehle paper, 1110 x 830mm, Original source: photographer and date unknown, National Publicity Studios, Copyright Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kawanatanga, Wellington, [AAQT, 6418, 29]

Anita Levering False Flat – Sap Green on Paynes Grey (2010) Acrylic and watercolour on linen, 2080 x 1980mm

Further information:

The Wallace Art Awards are the longest surviving and largest of their kind in New Zealand. They differ from other important New Zealand art prizes in that they aim to provide challenging opportunities and broadening experiences to the four major winners by way of residencies at top-class international institutions.

The Awards were presented on September 5 by Auckland Mayor Len Brown. The 2011 Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award Winner was revealed in real time through the Wallace Arts Trust Virtual Gallery exhibition of Paramount Award Winners, made possible by Auckland digital art innovator exhibbit.com.