Six artists have been shortlisted for the £15,000 Glen Dimplex Award, three of them Irish. They are the sculptor Siobhan Hapaska, born in Belfast in 1963 and now based in London; the German installation artist Hans Peter Kuhn; the American multi-media artists David McDermott and Peter MacGough, who combine as a team; the Irish sculptor Janet Mullarney, who was born in Dublin in 1952 and now lives and works in Italy; and the sound and installation artist Philip Napier, who lives and works in Belfast.
The list was announced in Dublin yesterday. The jury panel consists of Thomas Sokolowski, director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; Dominique Trucot, director of Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France; Paul O'Reilly, curator/director of the Limerick City Gallery of Art; Dr Margaret Downes, chairman of BUPA Ireland and a director of the Bank of Ireland; Dr Paula Murphy, lecturer in the history of art at UCD and a board member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art; and Brenda McPartland, senior curator of IMMA.
The organisers and sponsors of the event also announced a new non-monetary award for an artist who has made "a sustained contribution to the visual arts in Ireland". It will be made for the first time this year.
The Glen Dimplex Award is now in its fifth year and is open to Irish artists who have exhibited in Ireland or elsewhere from October 1st, 1996, to October 31st, 1997, and to non-Irish artists who have exhibited in Ireland in the same period. The shortlisted artists will be invited to show work in an exhibition at IMMA, which will open to the public on April 9th.
The £15,000 award will be presented to the winning artist at a dinner in IMMA following the final jury meeting in June. Commenting on the selection this year, Thomas Sokolowski said: "The overall sophistication of the artists represented was truly remarkable."