SCULPTOR Michael Le Grand is the 2011 “CityNews” Artist of the Year.

At the ACT Arts Awards ceremony on November 29, held at M16 Studios in Griffith, actor and artist Max Cullen presented Le Grand with a $1000 cheque and handed out some wise words for artists.

Queanbeyan glass artist Harriet Schwarzrock joined with “CityNews” in presenting Le Grand with a glasswork.

The artist, who works from his home studio in Murrumbateman, told “CityNews” he was touched and honoured by the recognition that this award comes from the arts community in Canberra, where he was raised.

One of Australia’s most important sculptors, his public artwork is highly visible in Civic, with his landmark red Japanese-style “gates” on London Circuit and a new blue work recently installed in Darwin Place.

He has shows work regularly in Sydney’s Sculpture by the Sea, where he has exhibited 11 times.

The child of Canberra art pioneers Henri and Riek Le Grand, he has devoted his life to sculpture, rising to the position head of the sculpture workshop at the ANU School of Art, which he describes as “the best institution around”.

One of the movers behind Florida’s sculpture events, the ANU’s Sculpture Walk, the Australian National Capital Artists studio facilities and the National Sculpture Forum, Le Grand is an experimenter and a daringly outspoken advocate for the arts in Canberra.

The awards evening, hosted by the Canberra Critics’ Circle, also featured the circle’s own arts awards and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s Green Room awards. The 2001 Canberra Critics’ Circle awards went to: writers K. J. Taylor, Kathy Kituai, Irma Gold and Melanie Tait; film makers Robert Nugent and Marisa Martin; visual artists Jenni Kemarre Martiniello, Robert Foster, Nikki Main, Ann McMahon and to Craft ACT; musicians David Mackay, Dominic Harvey, Annette Sloane, Alpha Gregory, and to the National Folk Festival’s “For The Fallen” concert; dance artists Liz Lea and Elizabeth Cameron Dalman; theatre productions by Supa Productions, Free Rain Theatre, Canberra Repertory Society and (collaborating with The National Library of Australia) Canberra Youth Theatre; theatre practitioners Christine Forbes, David McCallum, Chris Neale, Jim Adamik and Imogen Keen.

The MEAA ACT Green Room Award for 2011 went to Andrea Close for excellence and professionalism in all her theatre practice and the MEAA ACT Peer Recognition Award to Imogen Keen for her outstanding contribution, collaboration and innovation in theatre design.