MELBOURNE.- The National Gallery of Victoria today announced that the recipient of the 2009 Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award is Simone LeAmon.

The prize of $30,000 was awarded to Ms LeAmon for her chair titled Lepidoptera.

The multi-disciplinary designer said: “I am thrilled to accept this award and to be a part of this exhibition which draws attention to the work of outstanding Victorian designers. I can think of less than a handful of cities in the world where an exhibition of this standard could take place.”

A generous legacy of the late Colin Rigg (1895–1982), a former Secretary of the Felton Bequests’ Committee for the NGV, the award focuses on contemporary design practice in Victoria. This year it is dedicated to contemporary seat furniture design.

Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said: “In 2009 this award brings together works by fourteen designers of contemporary seat furniture, and reflects the NGV’s continuing support for, and commitment to, contemporary design. We warmly congratulate Simone on this outstanding achievement.”

These innovative and diverse contemporary seat furniture designs from Victoria were judged by Dr Kees Dorst, Professor of Design at the faculty of Design, Architecture and Building of the University of Technology, Sydney and senior researcher at the department of Industrial Design of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands.

“This exhibition is very diverse with a range of qualities and themes. Simone’s chair combines sustainability with new and intriguing aesthetics making it a courageous and exciting design. The idea of using textile scraps from the automotive industry in a chair gives the work style and attitude. This design has a great future on an international podium,” said Professor Dorst.

The other participating artists are Adam Cornish, Lambie Chan, Lucas Chirnside, Matthew Harding, Cathy Jankowsky, Joseph Keenan, Jacqueline Ying Jun Lin, Chris Connell, Stuart McFarlane, Ross McLeod, Drew Martin & Dale Rock (Rock Martin), Oliver Field, and Helen Kontouris.

Matthew Martin and Amy Barclay, Coordinating Curators of the exhibition, said that the designers in this year’s exhibition are informed by a broad spectrum of social, environmental, material and aesthetic concerns with every work having the potential to become a ‘design classic’ of the future.

Unrestricted by any predetermined theme, the resulting works are stylistically and conceptually disparate, using a variety of materials and techniques.

The award and exhibition are supported by the Cicely & Colin Rigg Bequest, managed by ANZ Trustees.

2009 Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from Thursday 12 March to Sunday 30 August. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia is open 10am–5pm, closed Mondays. Admission to this exhibition is free.