Student takes out NZ Emerging Artist Award

Fourth-year Photo Media student at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design Mish O’Neill has been recognized as one of four to receive the NZ Emerging Artist Award at the 2015 NZ Art Show.

The award, which focused on recognizing and encouraging emerging talent, was open to all students studying visual arts at a diploma or degree level, and recipients received $2500 prize money each. O’Neill describes her photographic style as a “romantic idealism in using analogue processes.”

“Recently I made a series with the pinhole camera over willing couples’ beds, and made long exposures of the couple being intimate. The series is called Through Morning Light, and is the series I won the emerging artist award for,” O’Neill says. Her winning series is an ongoing project, and O’Neill plans to work with ideas around environment and performance within an image. You can see more of O’Neill’s work on her website, mishoneill.com.