SYDNEY.- Play On: The art of sport, a selection of key contemporary art from 10 years of the Basil Sellers Art Prize, a biannual exhibition of new commissions that reflect on sport and sporting culture opened at the Hazelhurst Gallery and Arts Centre on 9 December.

Sutherland Shire Mayor, Carmelo Pesce said it is wonderful that one of Australia’s richest and most prestigious art awards is on view at Hazelhurst for the local community to see and enjoy.

The Basil Sellers Art Prize has inspired innovative and complex explorations of sport from a rollcall of Australia’s most accomplished artists.

Belinda Hanrahan, Director of Hazelhurst Gallery said the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to bring art and sport lovers together and to see the work of some of Australia’s most important artists.

Play On: The art of sport includes painting, sculpture, video, drawing and mixed-media installation by prominent Australia artists from diverse cultural backgrounds including Tony Albert, Daniel Crooks, Richard Bell, Shaun Gladwell and Lauren Brincat. Individual works in the exhibition engage with gymnastics, running, community sport, ground-keeping, AFL, race relations and the representation of women in sport amongst other ideas.

The acquisitive biannual Basil Sellers Art Prize ran from 2008 – 2016, an initiative of the Ian Potter Museum of Art. It was one of Australia’s richest and most prestigious art awards. Selected artists were commissioned to create a work in response to the theme. Winners were awarded a $100,000 prize.