Tom Malone Glass Art Prize 2025

The Tom Malone Glass Art Prize, Australia’s longestrunning acquisitive award for contemporary glass, grants $20,000 to the winning artist.

Established in 2003 by Elizabeth Malone, Governor of The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, it has been generously supported by Foundation Benefactor Sheryl Grimwood since 2018.

JUDGING PANEL:

DANTE MARIONI HON D.A (USA)

Internationally acclaimed for his masterful classical forms, Dante Marioni has shaped the landscape of contemporary studio glass for decades. Trained in centuries-old Venetian techniques and mentored by legendary Murano maestro Lino Tagliapietra, he stands today as one of the most respected voices in contemporary studio glass, and we are honoured to welcome him as a judge for this year’s Tom Malone Prize (TMP).

DR STEFANO CARBONI

During his time as Director of The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Dr Stefano Carboni was inspirational in supporting TMP. With his Venetian background, passion for Glass and Islamic Art, and 11 years of involvement with TMP, Stefano’s experience and knowledge in glass art is highly acclaimed and respected.

DR ROBERT COOK

Dr Robert Cook is a Curator of Contemporary Art at The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA). He was also the curator and manager of Tom Malone Prize for its 20-year duration at AGWA. With his years of experience, Robert continues to work closely with TMP, with and on behalf of AGWA, the acquiring Gallery of the annual winning work.

Ruth Allen

Clare Belfrage

Giles Bettison

Annette Blair

Peter Bowles

Lisa Cahill

Scott Chaseling

Anne Clifton

TOM MALONE PRIZE 2025

March 12 - April 6, 2026

LINTON & KAY GALLERIES COTTESLOE 40 Marine Parade Waterfront Cottesloe

Proudly brought to you by

TOM MALONE PRIZE COMMITTEE

Elizabeth Malone, Sheryl Grimwood, Marc Leib, Linton Partington, Miranda Brown

SHORTLIST PANELISTS

Dr Caterina Tognon, Tom Rowney, Neil Cownie, Gabriella Bisetto, Marc Leib

2025 JUDGES

Dante Marioni HON D.A, Dr Stefano Carboni, Dr Robert Cook

Erin Conron

Billy Crellin

Dr Mel Douglas

Amanda Dziedzic

Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott

Cheryl Edwards

Hannah Gregory

Marcel Hoogstad Hay

Kristin McFarlane

Nick Mount

Nada Murphy

Catherine Newton

Brenda Page

Drew Spangenberg

Jarred Wright

CLARE BELFRAGE

GILES BETTISON

ANNETTE BLAIR

CHERYL EDWARDS

MARCEL HOOGSTAD HAY

NICK MOUNT

DREW SPANGENBERG

RUTH ALLEN

Studio location: Victoria

Fossil - Eucalyptus camaldulensis is a sculptural meditation on extinction, memory, and our accelerating distance from the natural environments that once sustained us. The work presents an elongated cast bronze arm, both human and ancestral – holding a glass-blown section of the Eucalypt aloft as if in offering, warning, or lament.

At the core of this ongoing body of work is the recognition that Australia’s native forests are under continuous threat. Through ongoing clear-felling and habitat loss, the futures of old-growth forests - and the ecosystems dependent on them - are becoming increasingly precarious. In imagining a time when such trees may exist only as imprints, relics, or artefacts, the work speculates on what remains when living systems are pushed to the edge of disappearance. The raised gesture of the bronze arm can be read as reverence, desperation, remembrance, or protest. It holds the branch as if it were a sacred object or the last surviving specimen, becoming a monument to what we may lose, and a call to protect what still remains. The glass branch is formed through direct contact with collected bark from Eucalyptus camaldulensis, an Australian native species whose deep herringbone design carries the intimate marks of age, fire and ecological resilience. By blowing molten glass into moulds taken straight from the tree’s surface, the work captures its precise textures – its fissures, its memory, its ghost. The result is a luminous, spectral impression of a species under pressure, rendered in glass.

Photographer credit: Fred Kron

FOSSIL – EUCALYPTUS CAMALDULENSIS

Mould-blown, cut & polished glass, lost wax bronze casting 63h x 66w x 16d cm (variable)

SUPERABUNDANCE #14

Blown glass with cane drawing, sandblasted and pumiced

43h x 35w x 15d cm

CLARE BELFRAGE

Studio location: South Australia

Xanthorroea Quadrangulata is endemic to the state of South Australia. I planted two of them in my garden in Tarndanya (Adelaide) over twenty-five years ago. In that time one of them flowered, twice. I feel lucky.

I have always loved grass trees, yaccas, xanthorrhoeas.

Every part of the plant feels dynamic and animated. The trunks, fantastically textured, gnarly and tough, the flower spikes up to two metres in length with thousands of tiny flowers on them, and the foliage, spinelike, rhythmic and mesmerising. It is the foliage that I have been particularly drawn to. I see each spine, of which there can be hundreds in a single plant, as a line that catches light. It is an element repeated over and over, creating a rhythm, a form, and with occasional irregularity and interruption, expressing a beautiful order.

GILES BETTISON

Studio location: South Australia

This work relates to the ongoing algal bloom that began in South Australia in March 2025.

BLOOM 2025 #1

Cold assembled and hot-worked Murrini canes, rolled up and blown. Cold ground, carved and finished. 34h x 14diameter cm

ANNETTE BLAIR

Studio location: Australian Capital Territory

Traces of Stillness #24 reimagines the familiar form of an ‘oil can’ as a quiet vessel for memory and material presence. Suspended between usefulness and obsolescence, the work reflects on how traces of care, labour, and neglect become embedded in the surfaces of everyday objects.

The work holds a tension between fragility and weight. A translucent spout sits above a dense, weathered base marked by colour and corrosion, suggesting time slowed and settled into form. These contrasting surfaces speak to stillness not as absence, but as accumulation; history held quietly.

Informed by a deep engagement with glass, the piece treats material as a bearer of experience, where form and surface become a quiet record for touch, time, and lived experience.

TRACES OF STILLNESS #24

Blown and cold-worked glass, glass enamels and rust 39h x 25w x 20.5d cm

PETER BOWLES

Studio location: Tasmania

Quiescent object extends an ongoing exploration of stillness, gravity, and material restraint. Emerging from the earlier Ataraxia series, the work moves from an inward philosophical inquiry to an outward physical condition. Subtly tinted, striking opal glasses are specifically formulated to hold light rather than reflect it, creating depth that is sensed rather than immediately seen.

Each work is assigned to a discovered exoplanet-astronomical body (bodies) known not through direct image, but through their gravitational effect on surrounding light and matter. This naming logic is an echo of the material behaviour of glass itself, where presence is inferred simultaneously through transparency, translucency and opacity. Essentially, the work is to suggest moments of equilibrium, akin to quiescent galactic systems where motion is resolved, and energy held in balance. Neither inert nor expressive, they invite sustained attention, asking the viewer to pause and encounter form in a state of suspended and unspectacular objectivity.

QUIESCENT OBJECT: KEPLER-186F

Neodymium and cobalt-tinted striking phosphate opal glass, overlaid opaque coloured glasses. Blown, cut, ground and hand-lapped pumice finish.

15.5h x 22.5w x 22.5d cm

LISA CAHILL

Studio location: Australian Capital Territory

Rift explores the quiet architecture of folded light. Made with kiln-formed glass, the paired panels hold a subtle translucency that shifts with the viewer’s movement, recalling veils, tides, and atmospheric gradients. The gentle undulation evokes the softness of fabric while maintaining the inherent stillness of glass, creating a tension between fluidity and structure.

By presenting two forms in dialogue, the piece considers duality and reflection, and the way one element shapes the perception of the other. Surface bubbles and tonal variations remain visible as traces of the making process, allowing light to populate the interior of the glass and animate its surface.

The result is a meditative object that slows looking, inviting attention to nuance, to luminosity, and to the quiet complexities that emerge within repetition.

RIFT

Kiln-formed glass

Overall dimensions:

29h x 45w x 17d cm

Each component:

23.5h x 37w x 5d cm

29h x 45.5w x 7d cm

URBAN NOCTURNE

Mosaic glass, kiln-fused, blown, and polished

Overall dimensions: 58h x 50w x 42d cm

SCOTT CHASELING

Studio location: New South Wales

A triptych of glass vessels, each embodying a fleeting snapshot of the urban nocturnal landscape. This series captures the ephemeral spectacle of light against the slick, architectonic skin of glass-clad skyscrapers. The surface treatment translates the dynamic interplay of light: the visceral energy of reflected neon and street light is rendered through complex swirls, gestural twists, and sharp, linear vectors, creating an effect of luminous kinetic energy across the forms. These pieces function as receptacles of memory and as studies in reflection -transforming the cold precision of the city into a vibrant, molten tableau. The creation of these vessels is a labour-intensive, multi-stage process, integrating both kiln-forming and hotshop techniques.

Preparation of the Matrix: The process commences with the meticulous collation of sheet glass, which is cut into strips and subjected to an initial fusing cycle in the kiln to create foundational tiles.

VETROGRAPH: WILLIAMS

Blown glass with applied colour, enamels, metal leaf, lampworked. Acid-etched archival surface.

41h x 21w x 21d cm

ANNE CLIFTON

Studio location: Tasmania

This work uses an unusual restraint in my palette, settling into a nut-brown tonality. The patterning evokes a mid-century domestic atmosphere. While my practice continues to explore relationships - how one element reacts to another, how intimate proximity creates harmony, resistance, or silence- this piece also engages with nostalgia as a living force rather than a fixed past. It draws on my memory of a home shaped by the 1950s and 60s, where carpets, furniture and paintings persisted, unchanged into my adulthood.

The work considers how these inherited aesthetics continue to shape my contemporary experience, allowing personal and collective memory to surface from my subconscious in a materially responsive, present-tense form.

This work investigates the limits of hot glass through a complex inside-out making process that prioritises material reaction over fixed design. Built on a clear starter bubble (Blown glass), multiple internal and external colours are built up using layered powdered glass, colour shards, and hand-drawn stringers applied under direct torch heat before inflation. Precious metal leaf, primarily copper over silver, is incorporated to activate controlled chemical reactions and surface disruption. Prolonged reheating exploits differential viscosities, allowing the pattern to stretch.

PRISM STUDY: INNERVERSE #1

Hand-cut and finished mirror glass with painted and hand-incised surface

75h x 63w x 16d cm

ERIN CONRON

Studio location: Queensland

Prism Study: Innerverse #1 is a wall-mounted work that explores the illusion of interior space through reflection and line. The work is constructed from hand-cut and finished 6mm mirror glass, painted black and meticulously incised using a fine hand tool. Through this process of subtractive drawing, precise linear passages of mirror are revealed beneath the surface.

Rather than presenting a fixed image, the work fragments reflection into partial, shifting glimpses that respond to the viewer’s movement. These optical effects suggest an infinite inner space within a physically flat plane, while also disrupting self-reflection so that the viewer appears only in fleeting traces. The implied prism emerges as a perceptual construct, formed through light, movement, and deliberate absence.

SPECULATIVE FUTURE

Furnace-melted colour glass, blown and knapped*. Cut with a diamond saw, and reassembled. 3 pieces:

11h x 18w x 18d cm

21h x 14w x 8d

14h x 13w x 13d

BILLY CRELLIN

Studio location: Victoria

Speculative Future - how 3 pieces integrate as an installation. This series of works shows a fascination with the alchemical nature of form, colour, and change. It considers glass’s primal development as a means to mimic precious gems, positioning it as a kind of faux stone. It traces a passage from the natural to the engineered—into the synthetic or super-real—before entropy returns it to its constituent, natural state. It interrogates:

“What would it be like to live in a world where material knowledge is a crucial part of our existence, or where a loss of this material knowledge has the power to catalyse a catastrophic loss of agency? This stands in stark contrast to our contemporary experience, where commodities are mass-produced and fungible in their repetitive sameness, while our minds are submerged in data smog—our own version of catatonic numbness.” - Sophia Nuske, responding to this body of work.

*Knapping (or flintknapping) is the ancient art and skill of shaping brittle stones—such as flint, chert, or obsidian—into sharp-edged tools, weapons, and artistic objects by precisely fracturing them.

DR MEL DOUGLAS

Studio location: Australian Capital Territory

Exploring the interstices between form, object and time, this work turns attention towards the unseen.

Light, shadow and translucency shape a space where absence is not emptiness, but a site of contemplation.

SPACE AS PERCEPTION

Blown, coldworked and engraved glass 48h x 48w x 40d cm

AMANDA DZIEDZIC

Studio location: Victoria

Inspired by the long tradition of Natural History Museums using glass to record and preserve specimens for study and particularly by the exquisite Blaschka models, I create glass still lifes that invite quiet contemplation. These works echo the role of glass as both a scientific and artistic medium, capable of holding detail, fragility and permanence at once.

In an era where climate change continues to disrupt and endanger fragile ecosystems, these pieces become gentle acts of preservation. They offer moments of pause, encouraging viewers to reflect on the beauty of the natural world and the knowledge embedded within it. By transforming fleeting forms into glass, the work speaks to memory, loss and care, underscoring the importance of safeguarding what remains for future generations.

I use vintage, found items to give connection to the past. I sculpt in glass to give inspiration of the future, forever hopeful in my outlook.

SEGMENTS IN TIME

Blown, hot sculpted and lamp-worked glass with found objects including wood, bakelite and netting

40h x 80w x 50d cm

BENJAMIN EDOLS AND KATHY ELLIOTT

Studio location: New South Wales

Most recently, the theme we have explored is fast-flowing water - a theme for us that embodies the strength we tap into as we face challenges in life. When we stand before waterfalls, crashing waves or massive ocean swells, we feel an echo of that power within us. This is what we can bring to our best days.

In Cascade the aim is to convey the power of that rushing water, animated by coloured linework beneath the transparent overlay. The interplay between the overlay and the opaque interior creates depth, aiming to amplify the texture and then polished to contrast with the subdued matte surface of the opaque white form.

On one side of the vessel, a full view of the waterfall and on the reverse, a joyous spray of water released from its source, launched with force into the waiting space.

CASCADE

Blown glass, overlay, cane work, lathe-carved with diamond and stone wheels, polished with pumice.

71h x 21w x 12d cm

CHERYL EDWARDS

Studio location: Victoria

I have always been a vessel maker. I explore the way pattern relates to form and how movement beautifies the design. Devoted to repetition, Murrine is my paintbrush, per se. Drawing inspiration from textiles and fabric, when I layer tiny pieces of glass into vessels, it resembles weaving or stitching.

Throughout history, textiles have conveyed stories of their makers. When I create my work, I am speaking through my chosen medium and a little piece of me or part of my story is captured within the artwork. These patterns aren’t just decoration to me, they speak of care, resilience, everyday labour and heritage. It’s a way of holding meaning, transforming into something solid, luminous and lasting. I form my Murrine using coloured sheet glass. Large glass Murrine vessels constructed using tiles of coloured glass cane. The cane is cut and arranged into patterns then kiln-formed using heat and gravity. It is then ground and sandblasted.

WOVEN SERIES #21

Murrine-coloured sheet glass and tiles of coloured glass cane, kiln-formed, ground and sandblasted 39h x 39w x 14d cm

BUSH WEE

Stained Glass. Sandblasting, hand filing, engraving, kiln-fired grisaille painting and silver stain.

126h x 67w x 4d cm

HANNAH GREGORY

Studio location: Western Australia

A quick wee in the Australian bush has never been an act of privacy. And, although some unwelcome guests may be unsettling, an element of magic arises when the veil of our creature comforts is pierced and a trip to the loo becomes an experience in nature. A “Bush Wee” is something divinely, uniquely (frighteningly) Australian.

Largely created using techniques of hand filing, engraving and painting on flashed glass, this stainedglass window unites us in this moment of familiar vulnerability… under a warm night sky, as the eucalypts rustle in the wind.

CONTOUR

Blown and mirrored glass

20h x 37l x 37w cm

MARCEL HOOGSTAD HAY

Studio location: South Australia

This piece, Contour, embodies aspects of the physical universe at both astronomical and quantum scales. The gestural linework alludes to topography, light bending and the theoretical movements of the smallest pieces of matter. The intricacy of this linework when duplicated in the mirrored surface becomes more complex, making it ambiguous for the viewer to decipher which lines are material and which are reflected. Through this work, I am exploring perceptual elements, inviting the viewer to engage with the work and contemplate the self and our place in the universe.

KRISTIN MCFARLANE

Studio location: Victoria

Fragile Strength: Hydrangea Study explores the duality of strength and fragility through the interplay of botanical specimens and glass. The work considers how frailty and resilience coexist, mirroring the ways the body and mind remain strong through illness.

Hydrangeas are central to the work for their intricate skeletal structures, which remain as the petals fade or decay. These exposed frameworks embody strength; when the delicate exterior disappears, the skeleton persists as a quiet but steadfast support. At other times, the blooms appear full and flourishing, yet the same inner structure continues to provide resilience beneath the surface.

This process becomes a metaphor for illness and well-being. In periods of depression, fragility exists, but the ‘skeleton’ remains the source of enduring strength. The work reflects continuity, resilience and the hope found in cycles of growth, decay and renewal.

FRAGILE STRENGTH: HYDRANGEA STUDY

Kiln-formed glass, hydrangea petal specimens, hydrangea skeleton specimens, silver leaf, cobalt, stainless steel

59.5 diam x 0.7h cm

MOUNTS #4

Suspended blown glass, cane, surface worked, assembled, powder-coated steel, brass and wood components 88h x 74w x 15d cm

NICK MOUNT

Studio location: South Australia

In shifting my work from plinth to wall, I consider the frame not just as support, but as an integral architectural contribution to the composition—anchoring the work while expanding its spatial language.

The juxtaposition of hand-blown glass—organic, vibrant, and fluid—with the structural presence of metal-framed mounts, creates a compelling tension between fragility and permanence, chaos and control.

While the work directs the viewer’s gaze, it also invites the opportunity for personal interpretation. It marks a shift in my practice, where this evolution in concept is both a continuation and a departure.

NADA MURPHY

Studio location: Western Australia

I was inspired by the Australian Boab (Andonosia gregorii) found growing in the Northwest of Australia. The tree’s closest relatives live on the African continent, revealing the fact that life around the world is interconnected.

Whilst this tree survives hundreds of years in harsh conditions as a solo specimen, it is commonly found growing in groups, with the younger trees being sheltered and nurtured. The Boab asks us to recognise that all life is interwoven, even when this may be beyond our personal view. Whilst there is a uniqueness in every being, we also depend on other life for our survival.

My aim in this work was to develop a novel approach to frit painting by applying the traditional painting process or working ‘fat over lean’. The graphic was developed with successive firings using translucent colours (lean layers) to mix colours and to progressively build the image. A clear sheet of glass over the frit layer submerged the graphic and ‘glazed’ the surface before the background opaque glass sheet was added. The ‘fat’ layer was then applied to the surface of the work to achieve an ‘impasto’ effect with two tac fuses to develop density and form. Edges were ground and polished to reveal the layers.

Interwoven

Wall-hung: frit-painted, fired glass & clear glass overlay fused with opaque glass, ground and polished.

150 x 60 x 3 cm triptych

CATHERINE NEWTON

Studio location: Australian Capital Territory

Through a deep engagement with the materiality of glass, I investigate its formal and metaphorical potential to embody the nuanced connection between mother and child, particularly through the concept of touch.

Rooted in both personal experience and theoretical inquiry, my work draws on psychological frameworks and the enduring discourse of nature versus nurture. I see glass not only as a medium of fragility and transparency, but also as one capable of preserving traces of presence, memory, and emotion. Its paradoxical qualities of strength and delicacy mirror the complexities of care, protection, and generational bonds.

This work is largely biographical, focusing on my evolving relationship with my grandson. It is an intimate reflection on inherited love, interdependence, and the silent gestures that define maternal connection across time. Through the lens of glass, I seek to give form to the invisible yet deeply felt experiences of tenderness, vulnerability, and continuity.

MATERNAL CONNECTION

Gaffer lead crystal lost wax casting 20h x 17w x 11d cm

BRENDA PAGE

Studio location: Victoria

I am drawn to the space once held by another, to the act of keeping images as a gesture against uncertainty rather than affection. Objects and photographs linger, not just for memory, but out of fear, that experience is fragile, that what feels fixed can quietly dissolve.

I work with faces, real faces, remnants of presence that once filled a world. Photographs serve as touchstones: we do not merely observe, we seek resemblance, continuity and maybe confirmation that someone once was.

JARRED WRIGHT

Studio location: Queensland

These two suspended vessels reference fundamental string-and-weight instruments of measurement: the pendulum and the plumb bob. Though mechanically similar, each serves a distinct function, revealing a quiet duality between objects that share a common principle. This work acts as an allegory for how a single force can manifest in divergent applications, defining different planes of existence, ie: time and space.

Their contrast lies in their relationship to motion. The pendulum depends on continuous oscillation, translating gravity into a measure of time. The plumb bob, by contrast, relies on stillness; its accuracy emerges through the absence of movement, allowing gravity to establish a fixed vertical axis. Though opposing in behaviour, both negotiate the same gravitational pull.

The dual colour choices reinforce this dialogue: the black vessel suggests the grounded certainty of the plumb bob, while the white one evokes the inverted pendulum of a metronome. Glass, as an amorphous solid, mirrors this tension, retaining the memory of movement while embodying arrested motion—simultaneously a record of time and a spatial form.

PENDULUMS AND PLUMB BOBS

Wall-hung, hand-blown borosilicate glass 90h x 35w x 10d cm

VESSEL STUDY:

containers #11-13, 16-18

Blown glass, with coldworked solid colour components - hot joined, sandblasted and sealed

175l x 25w x 36 tallest cm

DREW SPANGENBERG

Studio location: South Australia

This work explores the vessel beyond its functional origins, considering it as an object of aesthetic and expressive value. Though informed by utility, each form operates as an autonomous element within a larger composition of contrasting yet harmonious shapes, textures, and colours. Through their interaction, the vessels reveal distinct identities, their relationships activating a sense of movement, character, and animated presence. Each piece retains its capacity to function as a container, honouring the history of the vessel while embracing contemporary reinterpretation.