Sarah Browne and Sasha Sykes are the overall winners of this year’s Golden Fleece Award. Browne was awarded the top prize in the Visual Art category and Sykes is the overall winner of the Craft and Applied Art category. Each receives €10,000. Shortlisted artists Rhona Byrne, Jennifer Hickey, Rosemary Kavanagh, Jan McCullough, Sorcha McNamara and Michael Murphy were each awarded €2,500.
Browne, who represented Ireland at the 2009 Venice Biennale with Gareth Kennedy, will use the award to facilitate the construction of a large-scale quilting frame at her studio, designed and made by art/architecture collective Forerunner. A graduate of NCAD (Fine Art, Sculpture), UCC (Autism Studies) and UCD (Gender Studies), Browne makes sculpture, film and performance work with a focus on developing processes of social engagement that don’t rely solely on speaking. A frequent collaborator with communities of diverse expertise, including children, lawyers, carers and poets, she says the bespoke frame will allow her to make larger quilted works and experiment with techniques, opening up new exhibition opportunities for her art.
Sykes will use the prize to test materials and develop new work for an upcoming exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy, using natural polymers and bioresins derived from carrageen seaweed. Known for striking hand-cast acrylic and resin works in which she encases plants, flowers, algae and fungi, Sykes’ sculptural objects, design pieces and furniture have been shown in Ireland and abroad and are part of major public and private collections. The National Museum of Ireland collection includes her Carlow Chair (2005) and her fireplace mantel, As I Am Now (2018).
The Golden Fleece Award was established in 2001 via a bequest by Lillias Mitchell (1915–2000). It’s the largest total annual art prize open to artists and craft practitioners from or living on the island of Ireland.
Cristín Leach
Image: Sasha Sykes Sanctum
