Dancing bear and warzone poetry among 2025 Ramsay Art Prize finalists
Twenty-two young artists from around Australia will vie for $100,000 as the Art Gallery of Australia reveals the finalists for the 2025 Ramsay Art Prize.
From a moving reflection on The Iliad partly filmed in a Ukrainian combat training centre, to colourful stoneware skirted with raffia by a fêted young Arrernte artist, the Ramsay Art Prize is back in 2025 with a crop of finalists that is both eclectic and familiar.
The Art Gallery of South Australia’s biennial prize for artists under 40 will celebrate its fifth year of competition in May, having attracted a record number of entries with over 500 artists from around the country submitting work.
Adelaide audiences might recognise many of them from past Adelaide Biennial appearances, from Stanislava Pinchuk — whose Homer-invoking video work The Theatre of War continues the themes of her 2022 Biennial highlight The Wine Dark Sea — to Sydney-born painter Tom Polo, whose colourful abstracts dotted the gallery’s Elder Wing that same year.
New South Wales-based Clara Adolphs, whose large-scale paintings and cool colour palette greeted visitors to last year’s Inner Sanctum exhibition, has also been selected as a 2025 Ramsay finalist.
There are also several local connections among the finalists, including Kaurna photographer and sculptor James Tylor, Arrernte ceramicist Alfred Lowe, glassblower Liam Fleming, and Yankunytjara and Antakirinja artist Lisa Khan.
Alfred Lowe, Arrernte people, Northern Territory, born Snake Well, NT 1996, You’ve been on my mind, sister, 2024, hand built stoneware with underglaze sgraffito and raffia, 220.0 x 100.0 x 141.0 cm (overall); Courtesy the artist and APY Art Centre Collective. Photo: heyandy.com.au
This year’s judging panel includes Art Gallery of South Australia deputy director Emma Fey, artist Michael Zavros, and Queensland College of Art and Design associate professor Julie Fragar, who took out the People’s Choice prize in the inaugural Ramsay competition in 2017 for her oil painting Goose Chase: All of Us Together Here and Nowhere.
Fragar isn’t the only Ramsay alumnus back in 2025, with this year’s shortlist including revisiting several past finalists, including Fleming (2021), Lowe (2023) and Tylor (2017) alongside Western Australian artist Emma Buswell (2023), Chinese Australian artist Jason Phu (2017) and Melbourne-based Gian Manik (2023)
Other highlights include Dancing Teddy, a giant teddy bear created by South Korean-born artist EJ Son which previously appeared at the Art Gallery of New South Wales after being named a finalist in the 2024 Wynn Prize.
Stanislava Pinchuk, born Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR 1988, The Theatre of War, 2024, 3-channel film, 10 mintues, 23 seconds; Courtesy of the artist and Ames Yavuz
The last three winners of the Ramsay Art Prize have all been based in South Australia, from the celebrated Indulkana-based Arrernte artist Vincent Namatjira, whose riff on Cook claimed the prize in 2019, to performance artist Ida Sophia, whose durational video work Witness — which saw her repeatedly immersed intoa body of water in a meditation on her late father’s adult baptism — won in 2023.
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“In its fifth iteration, the Ramsay Art Prize has cemented itself as an important contemporary art platform, celebrating the vitality and talent of artistic practice in Australia right now,” Art Gallery of South Australia director Jason Smith said of the announcement.
The winner will be revealed on Friday May 30, where they will pocket $100,000 and have their work acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia. All finalists will then appear in a major exhibition running from May 31 – August 31 2025. A non-acquisitive People’s Choice Prize will also see the publicly-voted crowd favourite take home $15,000 at the exhibitions conclusion.
2025 Ramsay Art Prize finalists
Clara Adolphs (NSW), Miguel Aquilizan (QLD), David Attwood (WA), Jack Ball (NSW), Emma Buswell (WA), Christina May Carey (VIC), Liam Fleming (SA), Bridie Gillman (QLD), Jordan Gogos (NSW), Visaya Hoffie (QLD), Lisa Khan (SA), Alfred Lowe (SA), Gian Manik (VIC), Callum McGrath (VIC), Lillian O’Neil (VIC), Jason Phu (NSW), Stanislava Pinchuk (VIC), Tom Polo (NSW), EJ Son (NSW), Shireen Taweel (NSW), James Tylor (SA), Elizabeth Willing (QLD)