Celebrating its 22nd year, the Tom Malone Glass Art Prize is Australia’s longest running award for contemporary Australian glass art with an acquisitive award of $20,000.
The prize was initiated in 2003 by Governor of the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, Elizabeth Malone. Since 2018, the prize has enjoyed the generous support of Foundation Benefactor, Sheryl Grimwood.
Seventeen remarkable artists have been shortlisted for the 2024 prize. Their innovative, dynamic artworks ensure the continuing venerable status of the Tom Malone Glass Art Prize. Linton & Kay Galleries are honoured to host this highly respected annual exhibition, and on this occasion at their new gallery in Cottesloe, Western Australia.
The exhibition celebrates the importance of glass as a medium within the landscape of contemporary Australian art. This national arts accolade exists thanks to the tireless dedication of the Tom Malone Committee: Elizabeth Malone, Sheryl Grimwood, Marc Leib and Linton Partington. Their continued support towards glass art encourages development and pushes artists beyond their limits to create pieces that make this exhibition one of the best art prizes in the country.
2024 FINALISTS
TOM MALONE PRIZE 2024
MARCH 6 - 30
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
SHORTLIST PANELISTS
Clare Belfrage, Dr Stefano Carboni, Neil Cownie, Dr Blanche Tilden, Richard Whiteley
2024 JUDGES
Caterina Tognon, Eileen Gordon, Carly Lane, Marc Leib
Gabriella BISETTO
Scott CHASELING
Erin CONRON
Eliana DELLA FLORA
Mel DOUGLAS
Sabrina DOWLING GIUDICI
Kevin GORDON
Rita KELLAWAY
Laurel KOHUT
Jessica LOUGHLIN
Nick MOUNT
Jessica MURTAGH
Brenda PAGE
Denise PEPPER
Jeffrey SARMIENTO
Jason SIMS
Drew SPANGENBERG
SCOTT CHASELING
GABRIELLA BISETTO
ELIANA DELLA FLORA
DOWLING GIUDICI
ERIN CONRON
MEL DOUGLAS
KEVIN GORDON
SABRINA
RITA KELLAWAY
JESSICA LOUGHLIN
JESSICA MURTAGH
DENISE PEPPER
JASON SIMS
NICK MOUNT
BRENDA PAGE
JEFFREY SARMIENTO
DREW SPANGENBERG
GABRIELLA BISETTO
This skin I’m in stretches, accommodates, responds. It’s familiar and unfamiliar tactile and alien transient and permanent. External forces pucker and prick it. Internal forces push against and out of it. It responds with patience, protecting, repairing replenishing, becoming new.
This skin I’m in.
by Michael Haines
This skin I’m in 2# Mirrored, kiln formed glass 90 x 70 x 5 cm
Photography
Devine Divided
Reverse painted, fused, blown, sculpted and etched glass 22 x 10 x 12 cm
SCOTT CHASELING
Influences from the 1980’s Memphis design movement, USA West Coast funk and contemporary ceramics are evident in my work. The Memphis design’s bold colours, geometric shapes and playful patterns resonate in my use of vibrant hues and unconventional forms. West Coast funk’s energetic and eclectic style can be seen in the dynamic and rhythmic composition of this piece and an emphasis on texture and materiality reflects the influence of contemporary ceramics inspiring me to be innovative with attention to surface detail creating a tactile reponse to the medium of glass.
ERIN CONRON
This work delves into our innate human attraction to structure, not just as a physical construct but as a metaphor for individuality. Patterns emerge as rhythms of life, shaped by both internal foundations and external influences. The work documents a period in my life when interstate relocation necessitated an approach to working with glass without studio access or specialised equipment. Freehand drawings of closely spaced lines forming geometric shapes are scanned and transferred using industrial glazing fabrication techniques. The combined layers of imagery, suspended on transparent glass sheets, create the illusion of form and optical effects.
by Dave Gleeson
Collective Construct (Prism Series)
Digitally printed ceramic fused ink on glass, steel fixtures
64 x 176 x 5 cm
Photography
Grey Cubed Kiln formed (slumped and lightly tack-fused) post-consumer glass, paint
60 x 80 x 35 cm (range from 25x25x25 to 35x35x35cm)
ELIANA DELLA FLORA
This work is a contemplation of hierarchy and perceived virtue of simplicity. It responds contemporary ‘greiging’ of a complex world, exacerbated by a culture of reductionism, immediacy and prioritisation of low production costs. Postconsumer glassware is constrained into a box and painted to minimise variation, with a tension behind the façade arising from the fusion of slightly incompatible glass. Minimal form, once a symbol of transcendence from the physical world, has been recontextualised to serve different agendas: mass consumption, power and control. By reworking discarded glass, the work draws attention to the connectedness of all matter and cyclical nature of perceived value. Use of discarded material draws attention to the cyclical nature of perceived value, with repetition challenging the supremacy of a single object.
MEL DOUGLAS
I am investigating the relationship between additive and reductive traces to evoke movement in space. Through linear matrices that draw the viewer in and out, the work creates a dynamic interplay of presence and absence. These contrasting elements invite contemplation on how shapes shift and transform, fostering a deeper understanding of spatial relationships. My aim is to reveal the beauty in both what is included and what is left behind, encouraging an immersive experience that engages the perception of movement and form.
Negation of Space
Glass drawing on glass
63 x 200 x 5 cm
Photography by David Paterson
SABRINA DOWLING GIUDICI
This artwork is my homage in memory of oceanographer, Emeritus Professor Thomas Malone, phytoplankton researcher and passionate ocean advocate. His work highlighted that problematic nexus between human choices and habitat impact, also a central theme of my art practice. Influenced by Australian reflections on ‘connection to country’; I create glass art-narratives about my ocean-edge experience, and home, on the coastal desert of the North-West. Shaped similar to the Venetian glass-form of the ‘fazzoletto Venini’, and reminiscent of many diaphanous marine lifeforms, the high edge of this vessel represents the ocean surface where phytoplankton live; oceanic micro-organisms responsible for significant production of Earth’s oxygen. They are represented by murrine inserts depicting the markings of phytoplankton diatoms. Appearing lace-like, the artwork voids represent oxygen bubbles, precious to human breath. Microscopic lifeforms aren’t visible and since they are unseen, I hopefully ask the question through my artwork, are they valued, or valued enough?
Frit wafer glass, with vitrigraph formed murrine inserts, fire blanket free-formed, hand draped, sand blasted and soft Dremel ground 22 x 41 x 40 cm
by Anton Blume
Phyto
Photography
Shape of Water
Hand blown glass, Swedish overlay colour, sandblasting, hand carving, felt and brush wheel polish
48 x 17 cm
KEVIN GORDON
I continue to explore the ever-changing nature of existence through my work. I aim to capture the delicate balance between chaos and calm that water embodies and its ability to carve landscapes, reflect light and sustain life. Its influences shape us and our world, we flow together in the vast currents of life.
Flumen
Kiln-formed glass, fused, slumped and sandblasted, enamel backed on metal wall brackets 84 x 182 x 4 cm
As I manipulate glass materials to their technical limits in size and form, evocation of the Australian landscape emerges from the kiln. My early, formative years were spent in the Australian outback town of Woomera, on Kokatha Country, surrounded by an arid, treeless desert. The nuanced beauty I first encountered there is a recurring theme as I purposefully work with molten glass flow, colour reactions and organic three-dimensional forms, simulating rock forming processes of sedimentation, metamorphism, intrusion and erosion. Imagery from an ancient Australian river, captured by satellite, translated into glass. Flumen is conversely both fragile and strong, delicate and bold.
by
Photography
Michael Haines
(You left me) Delightfully Unbalanced
Hot sculpted and assembled glass
36 x 28 x 7 cm
LAUREL KOHUT
My work explores human connections through objects of sentimental and personal importance. I am fascinated by the importance of the things we keep around us and the things we hold dear. I work within the format of sculptural, over-sized jewellery objects which highlight these personal connections. These objects often symbolise the strongest ties of affection, love, loss and remembrances. I love exploring the aesthetics and significance of this realm on a grand scale.
This series is an investigation into the forms of jewellery that is made through the braiding of hair. ‘Hairwork’ was historically used as mourning jewellery and is now largely out of fashion today. I am intrigued by this style of jewellery for its own aesthetic beauty and intensely personal connection with the beloved. I twist and pull glass to create my forms, seeking to interpret the emotional qualities of these pieces rather than replicate them.
Photography by David McArthur
reflected light ii Kilnformed, coldworked and assembled glass
86 x 86 x 9 cm
JESSICA LOUGHLIN
I am fascinated by the unreachable space - the view we perceive but can never reach. This work references the idea of something being there, but not there; like a horizon line, a distant illusion.
I have created this piece using opaline glass and light. Opaline glass functions similarly to the light in the sky, separating light into cool and warm tones. As light filters through the glass, it produces warm tones, while the reflected light reveals sky blue hues. In this work, the light passing through the glass illuminates the wall with a warm glow, while the glass itself almost disappears.
The work frames space, highlighting the beauty of emptiness. It casts a slowly changing light shadow as the light changes throughout the day, tuning the viewer’s eye to engage with it’s subtle transformations.
Double Jewel: A Still Life 2024
Blown glass, Murrini, Zanfirico and surface worked on a charred oak base 55 x 22 x 15.5 cm
NICK MOUNT
Nick likes to put things together with other things. Murrini things, Zanfirico things, Battuto things, all produced at different times and stored as objects to be used in compositions, as if “found”.
Scent Bottles are his thing. A journey now almost 30 years in duration. Linda Marie Walker says scent bottles hold desiredreams. Nick Mount’s scent bottles hold themselves like divine/ desire creatures; they are made to be in their own service, to be luminous by means of their own substance.
Nick likes to hero his materials and celebrate traditional hand working techniques in formal still life composition that reveal the Scent of the Maker.
Photography by Pippy Mount
JESSICA MURTAGH
Voyeurs, exhibitionists, eccentrics and ordinary people on display for the world to view. In the warm rosy glow of a summer sunset, passersby become inadvertent witnesses into the inner lives of strangers, on show like shadow puppets. The witching hour between arriving home from work and finally seeking their beds, private lives become public in the bright aura of apartment lights. One can’t help but ask the question, do apartment dwellers not own curtains?
Silhouettes and the City Blown glass, sandblasted & engraved. Gilded with 24k gold & nano coated Japanese silver leaf 50 x 22 x 22 cm
Photography by Jesse Reagon
BRENDA PAGE
The funnel serves as an allegory for life and death, symbolising life’s unidirectional flow. It begins wide and open, representing the vast possibilities of early life. In those formative years, we absorb everything indiscriminatelyevery sight, sound, and sensation, shaping who we are. This openness reflects the richness of potential, a space where chaos and abundance intertwine, gathering the myriad of influences that define us. As life progresses, the funnel narrows, mirroring the inevitability of mortality. In this narrowing, we are distilled and reduced. Yet, it reminds us to embrace the flow, accepting the transformation as a natural part of existence. We are encouraged to face the spout not with fear, but with gratitude for the fullness of experience that comes before.
by
The Bell Tolls Blown glass, screen printed, painted and fused glass, and cast glass
32 x 33 x 35 cm
Photography
Tord Johnston
Buckram Floret Bullseye frit glass, pâte de verre. Cast from original fabric piano shawl 133 x 65 x 5 cm
DENISE PEPPER
This work thoroughly examines the artistry of embroidered fabric through an innovative pâte de verre cast glass technique. I am dedicated to crafting a meaningful connection that honours the timeless elegance of heirlooms. The pâte de verre glass frit adeptly captures the intricate decoration and detail of the design, resulting in a piece that is both delicate and complex. With this work I have pushed boundaries in size and technique.
JEFFREY SARMIENTO
Encyclopaedia is an ongoing body of work exploring repositories of knowledge and experience, using transparency to express the idea of seeing all the layers of information at once. Finding new aesthetic possibilities through mishap, the work uses the flow of glass in a kiln to activate the two dimensional images within a three dimensional form. The piece is created using a combination of tightly controlled image-making and the chance movement of molten glass. The flow of glass creates a directional shift in the imagery revealing a graphic ‘swim’.
Encyclopaedia V
Screenprinted, cast and polished glass
22 x 100 x 12 cm
Photography by Brenton McGeachie
Dividing Range
Reflective glass, powder coated steel, mirror, aluminium and LED lighting 110 x 110 x 13 cm
JASON SIMS
As an artist, my interest has always been in perspective and the representation of space. Using light and reflection, I create expansive spatial environments that facilitate mediations on space and time, exploring the interconnectedness of the internal and the external, the physical and the psychological. I endeavour to create a visceral experience and like working with illusion for its seductive qualities and ability to confound the senses. It’s playful and surprising. Referencing an imagined landscape, Dividing Range is intended to evoke the sublime and emulate the eternal.
Photography by
Pippy Mount
DREW SPANGENBERG
Vessels have historically served as utilitarian objects - carrying, storing and protecting their contents. In this work you reimagine the vessel, shifting its purpose from functionality to a celebration of form and design. Pushing function to the background, I explore how these everyday objects can be transformed into intricate, sculptural forms. This collection draws inspiration from the bold colours and opulence of postmodern art, as well as the clean lines and simplicity of modernist design. My goal was to create vessels that embody elegance and subtle ornamentation - juxtaposing vibrant hues with soft surfaces and crisp, dynamic shapes. While glassblowing is traditionally associated with functional objects, I strive to blur the line between utility and art. These pieces, though primarily aesthetic, retain their capacity to function as containers, honouring the vessel’s original purpose. These pieces aim to embody both historical lineage and contemporary reinterpretation, inviting viewers to reconsider boundaries between art and functionality.
Containers 1-5
Blown glass, cold worked with hot joined elements, sand blasted and sealed surfaces
