th year of displaying interactive and thought-provoking works from across the country and the world. 250,000 people are expected to descend on the beach to view the sculptures across the ten-day event as the selection of Australian and international artists vie for a range of coveted awards valued at over $25,000. SWELL founder and curator Natasha Edwards said the growing reputation of the event had attracted top quality entrants from around the world. “Each year our audience appreciation for the diversity and quality of works presented grows exponentially and the excitement builds heading towards the opening,” Ms Edwards said. “This year’s final selection by the curatorial panel will showcase some of the best sculptural talent on offer in Queensland, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and New Zealand. “The open-air gallery and natural setting provides an incomparable cultural experience at any time of day, as well as the guided twilight walks each Sunday that provide a special opportunity to really engage with the work,” she said. New artists to the exhibition include the 2013 winner of the Mt Buller Sculpture Prize Louis Pratt, a Sydney-based artist and teacher with a ground breaking approach examining and mimicking the global technological process and digital consumption in his work. The multi award-winning and much collected artist presents King Coal, an installation of anthropomorphised coal that explores the precious resource’s place in establishing Australia’s economic past in the context of its future path towards environmental disaster. Also making their debut at this year’s SWELL is New Zealand based Gaye Jurisich, an experienced painter and sculptor in a variety of media. Describing her work as ‘revealing the progression of the human journey, the familiar becoming unfamiliar, and the known becoming unknown’, her work entitled Shroud is embedded in the landscape and integrates the specificity of the surroundings with a crucial correspondence between direction and light. Another debut entry is a lecturer at the School of Design Queensland University of Technology, Marissa Lindquist, who was part of the editorial team for the international 2010 IDEA Symposium’s Interior Spaces in Other Places and the 2012 Venice Biennale Australian Pavilion Catalogue.   Budgie Smuggler is the first work of a series that reflects upon other, often unintended, meanings behind popular Australian expressions and unintentionally masks the desperately tragic plight of wildlife trafficked every year within and beyond our borders. An unarguable highlight to the SWELL collective this year will be the exceedingly popular artists Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas in a highly anticipated return to the exhibition. The duo was responsible for the enormous inflatable octopus position on Currumbin’s Elephant Rock in 2014 eliciting awe and delight from thousands of contemporary art lovers. The 2015 Curatorial Panel faced the difficult challenge of final selection and was comprised of Matthew Tobin from Urban Art Projects, Professor Philip Follent, curator Dev Lengjel, SWELL founder and curator Natasha Edwards and SWELL director Ruth Della. Panel member Professor Philip Follent said that a particularly encouraging element was seeing 30 Queensland artists making the final cut in a national and international pool of 58 highlighting the depth and diversity of world-class local talent. “This year’s selection of local artists is exceedingly dynamic in terms of scale, media and messaging and matches their national counterparts measure for measure,” Professor Follent said. “The panel is confident it will result in a spectacular exhibition and our main goal is to challenge viewers’ perception, visually, emotionally and intellectually as well as present progressively higher standards of art work year by year. “We also seek to enhance the creative communication that befits the role of such a significant public art installation along one of the Australian east coast’s most iconic beachfront locations.” The major cash prize of $15,000 is proudly sponsored and awarded by The City of Gold Coast that in 2014, was won by the striking three-metre rifle Keeping up with the Kalashnikovs by artist Daniel Clemmett who returns to SWELL again in 2015. In addition are the Currumbin Beach Vikings SLSC People’s Choice Award, the Currumbin RSL Kids’ Choice Award and Max Fabre Foundation Environmental Awareness Award – all worth $3000 – and the $1,500 Jennie Neumann OAM Emerging Artist Award.   SWELL Sculpture Festival Date: 11 – 20 September, 2015 Location: Pacific Parade, Currumbin Beach Cost:  FREE www.swellsculpture.com.au]]>