The Art Gallery of South Australia has announced that West Australian artist Emma Buswell has been awarded the People’s Choice for the 2025 Ramsay Art Prize exhibition with her work The Pool, comprised of two large-scale knitted textiles that remix mythology and art history with contemporary social commentary.
Buswell’s textile works are meticulously constructed over many months on a 1960s hand-operated knitting machine using mill-end and luxury sock yarn. Her work takes its inspiration from the matrilineal craft and knitting techniques passed down from her mother and grandmother. Full of wit and satire and embracing a kitsch aesthetic, Buswell’s colourful work also investigates the nature of labour and identity through a distinctly Australian lens.
The Pool is a set of two textile works, one exploring the myth of Narcissus and Echo from Ovid’s millennia old text Metamorphoses. In the work, Buswell has knitted together different representations of this fable from historical paintings, using a visual language derived from internet memes to make parallels with current political frictions and social tensions.
The second work is an homage to a 1915 painting by Pre-Raphaelite artist John William Waterhouse, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott, in which Buswell draws attention to the value and role that artists and craftspeople play within society.
“Winning the People’s Choice means a lot to me, knowing that my work and the thoughts behind it have resonated with so many different groups of people,” said Emma Buswell. “Overall, my work is an attempt to chronicle and document the present, using art as a tool and form of labour to question what our future might look like and who might be allowed to participate in it.”
“I think a lot of people have had experiences of loved ones knitting them things and understand the care that goes into each stitch. In my work I try to make art that is of my own lived experience, intuiting art history and current day events through the lens of labour and repetitive work.”
“I hope that when people see these works, they might feel a sense of solidarity, or of being stuck in the mess and chaos all together, and maybe for a brief moment not feel alone in their thoughts and concerns about the future,” said Buswell.
Based in Fremantle, Buswell is an artist, curator and designer fascinated with systems of government, economies and culture, particularly in relation to constructs of place, identity and community. Buswell has founded and led artist-run spaces across Perth and Fremantle and exhibited and curated exhibitions across Australia.
“The Ramsay Art Prize People’s Choice is a meaningful honour that reflects the powerful connection between an artist and the audience,” said AGSA Director, Jason Smith. “Emma Buswell’s work cleverly intertwines art history and mythology with contemporary issues through the medium of textile, creating an immersive field of pattern and texture for the viewer. We warmly congratulate Emma on this outstanding achievement.”
The Ramsay Art Prize 2025 exhibition continues at the Art Gallery of South Australia runs 31 August 2025. For more information, visit: www.agsa.sa.gov.au for details.
Image: Emma Buswell with The Pool in Ramsay Art Prize 2025, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide – photo by Saul Steed