Works on Paper Prize 2025

$3,000

On 11 January, the following winners and highly commended were announced:

Winner

Olive Burgess
Gradually and then Suddenly

Highly Commended

Kirli Saunders
A Portrait of a Country

Danielle Creenaune
Quietude II

Thank you to everyone who entered the Works on Paper Prize 2025.

The inaugural Works on Paper Prize 2025 was judged by Yvette Dal Pozzo, Director at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery. 

The winner received $3,000 prize money plus a solo exhibition at the SHAC from 4 December - 21 December 2025

People’s Choice award of $500.

Judge’s comments:

It has been a delight to be a guest judge for the inaugural SHAC Works on Paper Prize 2024. It was fantastic to see the strength, innovation, and ambition of the artists who entered. The entries celebrated the depth and breadth of paper by incorporating myriad materials and techniques including printmaking, photography, drawing, assemblage and more. The selection of finalists celebrates a diversity of practices and conceptual focuses of artists working with paper across the country.

Many thanks,

Yvette Dal Pozzo she/her
Art Gallery Director

Artist Statement about her winning artwork:

Gradually and then Suddenly traces the act of seeing—of meeting oneself—in the mirror’s gaze. These images emerged after a procession of deeply upsetting events surrounding my life and identity as a lesbian. Within them lies a reckoning that reshaped both the mirror and the woman reflected within it.

Taken to the darkroom, the photographs were cut, fragmented, and distorted, leaving my technical training behind. The silver gelatin prints are scanned and embraced by the presence of my name and the untiring gaze of my passport photo in the chine-collé etchings—being alive, as is the verb. Over time, the mirror became a station of reclamation, a threshold where the woman in the glass unfolds further through repetition, her image shifting and reforming. This 28-page publication begins with a reimagined poem I first wrote eight years ago—a letter, then and now, to myself.

Gradually and then Suddenly is a readjustment of my flag in the ground after a heavy storm—re-statured through meeting in the mirror and the meeting through time.

Olive Burgess

The following artists are finalists of the Works on Paper Prize and the winner will be announced on:

Julie Bradley, Jane Park, Renay Smith, Henry Lewis, Peter Ward, Hilary Warren, Poss Keech, Tori de Mestre, Miranda Hampson, Felicite Briggs, Phillip Russell, Melody Perrin-Cruickshank, Alex Marie Beckinsale, Janet Hicks, Grahame Kime, Alison Mackay, Tahlia Henderson, Gary Christian, Celeste Walker, Regina Brewster, Julie Lynch, Bronwyn Berman, William Hall, Patrice Cooke, Natalie Will, Lauri Smith, Suzanna Hay, Allie Webb, Justin Pearson, Kirli Saunders, Jan Newton, Barb Henderson, Robyn Kinsela, Sami Sparrow, Ashiq ur Rahman, David Starr, Bruce Woods, Caroline McGregor, Sue Bessell, Seong Cho, Freya Jobbins, Glenda Jones, Sky Grove, Scout Etcell, Judy Mylonas, Susan Shrubb, Josh Shrubb, Louise Nade, Tamara Pavlovic, Olive Burgess, Hanna Layson, Pip Milton, Linzie Nardi, Ann Rayment, Danielle Creenaune, Jack Buckley, Andrew Clarke.

Thank you to the WOPP 2025 major prize sponsor - Corina Nesci from Highland Property.