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Veteran artist Robert Jahnke has won this year's Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award, which will give him a six month residency in New York.
The 68-year-old from Ngāti Porou, who is professor of Māori visual arts at Massey University in Palmerston North, says it's the first time he has entered an art competition, and he did so because the works will tour nationally.
Lamentation VI (six), a construction of wood, glass, mirrors and incandescent lights, is a collaboration with slam poet Te Kahu Rolleston and was taken from an exhibition of his work now on at Hastings Art Gallery.
He acknowledges the influence of the late Ralph Hotere, who also often worked with poets.
"Hotere's always been one of my idols and I'm a lot tighter than he is so I rely on my architectual and graphic ability to put these forms together," Professor Jahnke says.
The Kaipara Wallace Arts Trust Award, which comes with a three month residency in Switzerland, went to a painting by Tira Walsh from Tainui, who completed her Master of Fine Arts at Unitec last year.
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