Sydney-based Indigenous artist Carmen Glynn-Braun has been awarded the 2018 TWT Excellence Prize, selected from more than 200 graduating students presenting work in the University of NSW Art & Design’s ANNUAL 18 Graduate Exhibition.

Glynn-Braun was awarded the $5,000 bursary by TWT Property in recognition of her work Untitled 2018 which explores the Indigenous women’s experiences with the Assimilation Policy, an Australian policy designed to obliterate Indigenous bloodlines entirely by removing children from their families and ultimately ‘breeding out’ skin colour over generations.

Glynn-Braun’s work considers how countless Indigenous women lost their children under the act and consists of four flesh-coloured paint skins that imitate the various skin colours of Indigenous Australia today, post-Stolen Generations. The paint skins are hung alongside each other, fairest to darkest in solidarity, standing as evidence of the continued survival and resilience of Aboriginal people.

Established in 2017, the annual TWT Excellence Prize is awarded to the top graduating artist presenting work in the ANNUAL 18, Australia’s largest and most diverse national showcase of graduate contemporary art, design and creative media. The exhibition is free to the public and open until 8 December 2018.

Image: Carmen Glynn-Braun with her work Untitled 2018. Courtesy TWT.