Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize
Congratulations to Hannah Gartside, the winner of the 23rd Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize.
Gartside, a Melbourne-based artist, won the $25,000 prize for her work #19, part of her ongoing series, Bunnies in Love, Lust and Longing, 2024, that anthropomorphizes second-hand gloves into rabbit forms. The work was recognised for its emotional depth, use of repurposed materials, and personal exploration of tenderness, desire, and introspection. The piece will join the Woollahra Council’s permanent collection.
The prize, judged by director of curatorial affairs at Mona, Jarrod Rawlins, executive director of Arts Project Australia, Liz Nowell, and AGNSW curator of First Nations Art, Erin Vink, highlighted Gartside’s ability to imbue small-scale art with emotional resonance. Nowell praised the artist’s use of discarded gloves, which evoked nostalgia and intimacy through their transformation into the winning work.
Gartside’s win marks the first major award in her artistic career. Gartisde’s background as a costume-maker influences her sculptural work, particularly the use of found fabrics.
In addition to Gartside’s win, Girramay artist Erica Muriata received a Special Commendation Award for her work Recycled Jawun, 2024, noted for its innovative approach to traditional Indigenous art, the judges highlighting Muriata’s work “strongly reinforces to its viewer that Aboriginal culture from Far North Queensland is ever-changing and alive.” The Mayor’s Choice Award went to Penny Howard for After School, 2024. Public voting for the $1,000 Viewers’ Choice Award remains open until the 20th of October 2024.
Artist Profile is proud to be the platinum sponsor of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize.
EXHIBITION
Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize
13 September – 20 October
Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, Sydney
It is one of the peculiarities of the art of painting that all the strength and suppleness of movement the painter’s body can bring to...
I met with Gary Deirmendjian in his studio, or one aspect of it at least, at a café in Sydney’s Kings Cross. He is self-described...
Adam Douglas Hill (AKA Blak Douglas) is an attention-seeking artist. Seemingly on the fringes of the art world but also something of a celebrity whose...
With the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) in Sydney recently announcing the reintroduction of admission fees from February 2025, there has been a renewed...
The colonial spasm that started in the seventeenth century, that saw the world carved up to fuel capitalism and created a socio-political landscape that led...
On his visit to Australia in 1968 the American art critic Clement Greenberg encouraged young artists to “enjoy their diversity”—advice Jock Clutterbuck appreciated. As a...
Here are brief segments pulled from fieldnotes that emerged from the beginning of the first two weeks of my fieldwork in the rural town of...
Bathurst has inspired the exhibition yet it’s not an exhibition about Bathurst. My mum grew up there. My grandparents and uncle had a farm there,...
The typical arc of a mid-career retrospective exhibition is that of an artist arriving at a fully formed artistic style. But this major exhibition is...
