The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize is Australia’s pre-eminent national prize for small sculpture. This year the $15,000 acquisitive main prize has been awarded to Melbourne-based artist Robert Owen for his bold, painted stainless steel work, Symmetria #37. The winning work is a continuing investigation into geometry, proportion and visual poetry, reflecting on the themes of order and disorder, fragment and unity, levels of feelings, orders of sensation, shifting sequences and time and rhythm.
A record number of entries were submitted to the Prize this year, with Owen’s sculpture being one of 701 works submitted that was later chosen from a selection of 43 finalists. The judging panel for the 15th annual Prize was comprised of Dr Michael Brand, Director of The Art Gallery of NSW, Penelope Seidler, CEO of Harry Seidler & Associates and Curatorial Advisor Barbara Flynn.
Commenting on the process and choice of winner, the Judges said: “This year’s prize includes a good representation of both established and emerging artists, working across a diversity of mediums and approaches. Works in paper predominated along with the use of traditional materials used in new ways and an inventive use of colour.”
“Owen’s sculpture reveals a complex and sophisticated use of line and shadow. A senior Australian artist, with significant works on a monumental scale across Sydney, his winning submission demonstrates excellence also on a smaller scale.”
Owen will be awarded the acquisitive prize money of $15,000 and the winners of the Special Commendation, Mayor’s Award, the Highly Commended, the Viewer’s Choice awards and the Plinth Prize will be officially announced at the opening of the exhibition on Friday 9 October at Woollahra Council Chambers in Sydney.
This year the Beowulf Award will be introduced in recognition of artist Thor Beowulf, the 2012 winner of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, who recently lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. The Beowulf family has introduced a $1,000 prize, in remembrance of Thor, awarded to artists who consider ideas surrounding the environment and plants in their sculptures. This year the family have selected Kendal Murray as the recipient of the Beowulf Award, for her work Game, Claim, Exclaim!, a work that responds symbolically to our natural and botanical surroundings.
Woollahra Council Chambers
10 to 25 October, 2015
Sydney
Robert Owen, Symmetria #37, 2014, painted stainless steel, 62.5 x 72.5 x 65.5cm