The Arts Foundation has announced its five 2009 Laureates: Lyonel Grant, carver; Witi Ihimaera, writer; Chris Knox, musician; Anne Noble, photographer, and Richard Nunns, musician specialising in Māori instruments.

“The Laureate awards are about recognising senior New Zealand artists who have a substantial track record of excellence, and who still have plenty of creative juices left in the tank,” says Foundation chairperson Ros Burdon.

The awards celebrate the artists’ achievements and contribution to their fields, as well as investing in their futures in a very real sense – each of the Laureates receives a $50,000, no-strings-attached donation. This year’s awards marks the Arts Foundation’s tenth birthday and bring the total number of Laureateships awarded to forty-nine.

Previous winners are listed on the Arts Foundation website. More information on this year’s winners will also be available there but here are some brief backgrounders (courtesy of the Arts Foundation media release).

Lyonel Grant (Te Arawa) is a master carver and sculptor who works in many media, including stone, wood, bronze, glass, ceramics and paint. Lyonel is a graduate of the Te Puia Māori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua, and he now moves between classical and contemporary practice using his own unique methods. Lyonel’s most recent work is Te Noho Kotahitanga, the marae at Unitec in Auckland. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Unitec in July 2009 and has been invited to contribute to the 2010 Expo pavilion in Shanghai. New work ‘Roundabout’ will be exhibited in Wellington’s City Gallery in September 2010. Check his website here.

Chris Knox’s output is not confined to making music. He is also known for his spirited and original contributions to film, video, cartoons, writing and criticism in leading New Zealand magazines, and on radio and television. Chris is known as the ‘spiritual godfather’ of the celebrated Flying Nun record label, releasing his own music on the label and helping many bands record on it, as well as designing record covers and shooting music videos. Chris has been a mentor to many New Zealand bands, and he has an international reputation as an influential musician. Stroke, a new album of Chris’s songs performed by local and international musicians, was released earlier this week. His 1990 song, ‘Not given lightly’, made no. 13 in the top 30 New Zealand songs as voted by APRA and the academy in 2001 (see the full list here). NZ On Screen have celebrated the release of Stroke with the release of The Chris Knox Collection, created by long-time friend Roger Shepherd. For more information about Chris (including where to buy Stroke) check the Chris Knox website.

Witi Ihimaera (Te Whānau a Kai, Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga a Mahaki) is one of New Zealand’s most respected writers. His fiction is written very much from a Māori perspective; Witi sees “the world I’m in as being Māori, not European”. Witi published his first collection of short stories, Pounamu Pounamu, in 1972, followed by the novel Tangi in 1974, making him the first Māori writer to publish both short stories and a novel. Significant works since then include The Matriarch (1985) and Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1995). His 1987 novel The Whale Rider became an internationally successful feature film. He recently published The Trowenna Sea. Witi was honoured earlier this year when he was awarded Te Tohutiketike a Te Waka Toi at the Creative New Zealand Te Waka Toi Awards. Check out this clip from The Whale Rider on Te Ara and watch the Kaleidoscope profile on NZ On Screen.

Anne Noble is one of New Zealand’s most widely recognised and respected contemporary photographers. Anne is Professor of Fine Arts (Photography) at Massey University in Wellington, and was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to photography in 2003. She has received international recognition; notably her series Ruby’s Room was selected by the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris as the keynote contemporary photography exhibition for the inaugural Paris PhotoQuai Biennale of Photography in 2007, while in 2008 she visited Antarctica in 2008 after winning a prestigious US National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Award. Interestingly this was her second trip to Antarctic, the first being in 2002 as part of the Artists to Antarctica scheme. A selection of work can be seen on Bartley + Company Art’s website and there’s an excellent article from the archives of Art New Zealand, Anne Noble: Landscapes & Portraits.

Richard Nunns is an authority on ngā taonga pūoro (Māori traditional musical instruments) and is described as one of New Zealand’s most remarkable musicians. Working with the late composer Hirini Melbourne and with Nelson carver Brian Flintoff, Richard helped rediscover many traditional instruments. He was awarded a Queens Service Medal earlier this year and – together with Hirini – was inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame at the 2009 APRA Silver Scroll Award. Richard is currently working on a number of recording projects and his next major performance will be with Latitude 35 Degrees South – a group of musicians from New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina – who will play for the first time at the Bay of Islands Arts Festival in February 2010. More information about Richard is available here.

Image: Clockwise from top-left, Lyonel Grant, Anne Noble, Richard Nunns, Chris Knox and Witi Ihimaera

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Culture online, Funding & awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.