Australia’s most prestigious award for small-scale sculpture, Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf has announced the winners of the 2025 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize.
Founded by Woollahra Council and now in its 24th year, the Prize continues to celebrate dynamic and innovative approaches to contemporary sculpture, with this year’s winners highlighting the transformative potential of materials and form.
Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize 2025 – $25,000
Awarded to Auckland-based artist Virginia Leonard for Glad that you are not here all the time – an urn for unwanted limbs and other things, crafted from clay, pure gold and resin. An internationally recognised ceramicist represented by leading galleries in Aotearoa, Australia, the USA and Switzerland, Leonard’s work is held in major public and private collections worldwide. Her winning sculpture channels personal frustrations into a layered form, combining glazed ceramics with resin casting to explore the tensions between opacity and transparency.
“I am super grateful and honoured to win the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, and to be showing alongside some incredible works. It is such a massive feeling to be acknowledged with this new body of work, as I pour and cast resin in my garage late into the night hoping that what I see and feel, other people will as well,” said Virginia Leonard.
Special Commendation Award – $2,000
Awarded to Paddington-based artist Thomas Mason for Torque, an assemblage of stoneware, glaze, construction adhesive, epoxy putty and cornice cement. A Sydney ceramic artist with a Master of Fine Art (Research) from UNSW, Mason has exhibited widely across Australia including solo shows at KUDOS Gallery and GAFFA Gallery. His prize-winning work draws on the physics of wave motion and the embodied mechanics of making, with twisted forms reflecting the energy and resistance of clay in process.
Mayor’s Choice Award – $1,000
Selected by Mayor of Woollahra Sarah Dixson, the award went to emerging ceramic artist Alicia Cox for Rack. Through casts of her own body, Cox’s work explores the intersections of domesticity, gender and the body as a vessel.
Using mould-making techniques, she reconfigures herself into tableware to examine ideas of function, decoration and objectification. Cox is an emerging artist working and living on unceded Ngambri and Ngunnawal land. She recently graduated with First Class Honours from the Australian National University School of Art & Design.
“Rack shows objectification in a very real, practical way and makes a comment on the role of women in the home. It’s both familiar and challenging, and also quite fun,” said Mayor of Woollahra, Sarah Dixson.
“It’s a great example of why the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize is so fantastic — it gives emerging artists like Alicia Cox the chance to be in the same room as better-known names in the art scene, and her work absolutely holds its own.”
The 2025 judging panel comprised Sanné Mestrom, Artist and Academic and winner of the 2017 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize; Justin Paton, Head Curator of International Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; and Megan Monte, inaugural Director of Ngununggula, Southern Highlands Regional Gallery.
“These works are powerful examples of the Prize’s focus – how small scale can hold immense conceptual weight. Virginia’s work is both raw and refined, deeply personal yet universally relatable, while Thomas’s piece captures the physical energy of making in an extraordinary sculptural language,” said Gallery Director, Sep Pourbozorgi.
Visitors are invited to explore the remarkable breadth of small-scale sculpture, from ceramic, glass, resin and neon to matchboxes, paper pulp and photographic paper, in an exhibition featuring works by all 54 finalists.
2025 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize Exhibition
Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, 548 New South Head Road, Double Bay (Sydney)
Exhibition continues to 16 November 2025
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.woollahragallery.com.au for details.
Images: Virginia Leonard, Glad that you are not here all the time – an urn for unwanted limbs and other things, Winner of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize 2025 – photo by Jacquie Manning | Thomas Mason, Torque – photo by Jacquie Manning | Alicia Cox, Rack – photo by Jacquie Manning