SYDNEY.- The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, presented by Woollahra Council, today announced 48 emerging and established artists as finalists for the 18th annual Prize and exhibition. The finalist group was selected from 666 entries this year including artists from Australia, India and the United Kingdom, highlighting the Prize’s growing international reputation.

The innovative submissions – each for a freestanding sculpture of up to 80cm in any dimension – were selected by a judging panel comprised of Australian arts administrator Michael Lynch AO CBE and Director of independent art advisory LoveArt, Amanda Love.

Amanda Love said: “The 2018 Prize finalists are a microcosm exemplifying the diverse sculptural practice active in Australia and internationally today. We have curated a shortlist of works that should provide a thought-provoking exhibition and brings together artists from a range of cultures, ages, mediums and career stages.”

Michael Lynch AO CBE commented: “Our selection for the Prize represents a strong list of 48 finalist artists, offering a diverse cross-section of artists and works including, this year, artists from India and the United Kingdom. We look forward to reviewing and judging the finalist’s small sculptures this October.”

The free exhibition is from 20 October until 11 November 2018 at the Woollahra Council in Sydney. Prize money this year totals $24,000 across four categories. The Prize categories are the main Acquisitive award of $20,000; a Special Commendation award of $2,000; the Viewers’ Choice award of $1,000; and the Mayors Award of $1,000.

The 2018 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize finalist artists are: Annabell Amagula (NT) Uri Auerbach (NSW) Lincoln Austin (QLD) James and Eleanor Avery (QLD) Karen Black (QLD) Tom Blake (NSW) Lauren Brincat (NSW) Bonita Bub (NSW) Alison Clouston (NSW) Steven Cybulka (SA) Karl de Waal (QLD) Paula Dunlop (QLD) Jamie Edward (TAS) Shane Forrest (NSW) Danielle Freakley (VIC) Honor Freeman (SA) Rebecca Gallo (NSW) Mathieu Gallois (NSW) Amala Groom (NSW) Neeraj Gupta (INDIA) Lee Harrop (NT) Anna Horne (SA) Mehwish Iqbal (NSW) Robbie Karmel (NSW) Lucinda Kirkby (VIC) Jasper Knight (NSW) Matilda Kubany-Deane (NSW) Hannah Lees (VIC) Jess MacNeil (UK) Will Maguire (NSW) Rocket Mattler (NSW) Anne-Marie May (VIC) John Nicholson (NSW) Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (NSW) Kirsten Perry (VIC) Eloise Rankine (NSW) Tim Silver (NSW) Katie Stackhouse (VIC) Abdullah M I Syed (NSW) Julian Talarico (NSW) Sherna Teperson (NSW) Linda Davy and Tim Barrass (ACT) John Tuckwell (NSW) Brendan Van Hek (NSW) Craig Waddell (NSW) Fiona Watson (NSW) Min Wong (WA )Ken and Julia Yonetani (NSW).

Pakistani artist Mehwish Iqbal, whose work explores self-lived experiences within the social, cultural and political climate of the country of her origin and her home Australia, will present a meticulously crafted small sculpture titled, Letters to My Mother (2018). By inscribing Urdu and English languages onto raw charcoal, Iqbal tells a tale about the “void” between a mother and a daughter growing up with little knowledge of each other and explores the notion of separation that exists between individuals through their migration in life, carrying an urge to rekindle the relationship through materials.

Artist couple from Queensland, James and Eleanor Avery, who have been collaborating on large-scale sculpture, installation and public art projects since 2004, have created Fabric #2 (2018), a cast composite sculpture that plays with the iconography of power, order and concepts of hazard and authority. Influenced by the Cosmati brothers’ opus sectile floors, the work has been cut, carved and recast in multiple materials to become a rhythmic negative and positive repeat form.

Delhi, India based artist Neeraj Gupta’s work, titled Drifter – III (2018), challenges what he suggests is the de-humanisation of art in a modern world of super-technology. Using pigment in white cement to create a stylised bust, Gupta seeks to reject art as information or reduction and return to art as emotion, harnessing its mysterious power of transcending history and horizontal time to allow his viewers to see things acutely.

Sydney artist Eloise Rankine’s, Rip me apart (2018), explores the expressive nature of porcelain. As if stuck in a movement, this work shows pink, almost flesh-coloured, porcelain frozen in the act of being torn apart. Referencing both the physicality of throwing porcelain on the wheel as well as the plasticity of clay itself, this work is porcelain being pushed to its limits. Both sharp and soft, flowing yet static, the binaries in this work keep it on the precipice of appeal and repulsion.