Ian Friend Finalist in The Queensland Regional Art Awards (QRAA) 2023 | 17.10.23 — Jan Manton | Contemporary Australian and International Art

Artwork: Ian Friend, *Freycinet*, 2023, watercolour, ink, gouache on paper (detail image). Image courtesy of the artist.

Congratulations to Ian Friend who is a finalist in the Queensland Regional Art Awards (QRAA) 2023 with the work Freycinit.

The Queensland Regional Art Awards (QRAA) is an annual visual arts prize and exhibition for established and emerging artists living in regional and remote Queensland with a record prize pool of over $140,000 (an increase of $100,000 from last year) across 10 award categories.

Friend’s work Freycinit was selected among 350 entries.

Launched by the not-for-profit in 2010, QRAA are an important highlight on Queensland regional arts calendar, providing a high-profile opportunity for emerging and established artists located outside of the Brisbane City Council area to showcase their artwork and reach an audience beyond their locality.

Each year, the QRAA feature diverse visual arts categories responding to a selected theme. This year the theme is “Perspective”, inviting artists to consider the concept in its many facets, viewpoints and nuances. The theme plays on a term familiar in the visual arts, and central to our modern society, reflecting different individual and collective viewpoints and opinions, stemming from varying life-experiences, perceptions, understandings, memories and emotions. Flying Arts Alliance is looking for stimulating entries that address this broad concept through the visual arts and share story-telling that extends notions of individual and collective perspective.