The National Gallery of Australia has acquired a work by Charles Darwin University visual artist and PhD candidate Caroline Rannersberger under the cultural gifts program.
Following an initial conversation, the National Gallery contacted Ms Rannersberger to discuss selection of a relevant piece, which resulted, nearly one year later, in the artist donating the work on paper, Sublime simplicissima 2006.
Chairman of the National Gallery of Australia Council, Rupert Myer AM, wrote in a letter to the artist: “The beautiful unique state print, through its layering of Northern Territory mountain ranges...makes a valuable contribution to the Gallery’s collection of artworks exploring the Australian landscape.”
Ms Rannersberger said she felt it was a milestone in an artist’s career to have a piece collected by the National Gallery.
“It is touching that my work was even considered and it is wonderful to be recognised at this level for years of hard work,” she said.
This is a first for a CDU research student, a label Ms Rannersberger happily accepts, despite the fact that she is an increasingly successful and respected landscape painter and printmaker, nationally and internationally.
Ms Rannersberger is completing a PhD in visual arts as an interdisciplinary fusion of painting and philosophy. She first discussed the possibility of gifting a work while carrying out research at the National Gallery last year.
Her artworks are currently being shipped to Sydney for her final PhD exam and exhibition at Dominik Mersch Gallery which runs from June 10 to July 10.