Award winning artist Damien Shen delivered an artistic development program for artists in Port Pirie and surrounding areas. The purpose of the program was to provide professional development workshops in the visual arts to Aboriginal artists in the region, targeting artists who have demonstrated an express demand for such workshops.
Damien Shen is a South Australian man of Ngarrindjeri and Chinese bloodlines. His artistic practice is embedded in histories, revisiting the people, places and stories that shape the world he occupies. Damien's work includes labor intensive drawings, water colors and velvety smooth oil paintings. In 2016 he was the winner of the 64th Blake Prize in the Emerging Artist category and in 2015 he won the Prospect Portraiture Prize and was a finalist in the Whyalla Art Prize and the 32nd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. He was the 2014 South Australian NAIDOC Award artist of the year.
The program focused on drawing skills and charcoal technique as well as business and marketing knowledge. As a further outcome of the project, artist Annette Dodd exhibited an artwork created in the workshop in Our Mob 2016, Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide.