AWARD: Masahiro Asaka Wins the 2011 Ranamok Glass Prize

Serge 12, 2011, Masahiro Asaka, winner 2011 Ranamok Prize

The Ranamok Glass Award, one of Australia and New Zealand’s most prestigious art prizes, announced their winner last week in conjunction with the exhibition’s opening at Canberra Glassworks. Australian artist Masahiro Asaka won for his white, cast and cold worked glass cylindrical piece Surge 12, which beat out 32 other finalists to win the 17 year old prize, which comes along with a $15,000 cash award.

The Japan-born, Australian National University-ducated, Curtin, Australia-based Asaka writes about his piece, “Heat transforms the state of glass from solid to liquid. The mass of the glass inside the mould collapses under gravity and density increases as melting continues. My process allows the object to inherit both the beauty of the material as well as my desire to control it.” The award is Asaka’s first major award. He has done group exhibitions throughout Australia and he has placed work in the Palm Springs Art Museum in California and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Andrew Plummer, who founded the prize along with Maureen Cahill in 1994, said Asaka’s piece, “embodies strong contrasts. Surge 12 highlights extreme tensions in the medium of glass; between a sense of repose and of dynamism… the work has a compelling sense of dynamism.” In addition to Mr. Doyle, the jury for this year’s prize were Tina Oldknow of the Corning Museum of Glass, Louise Doyle of Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, and Geoffrey Edwards from the Geelong Gallery.

The piece can be seen in an exhibition with the prize’s finalists at the Canberra Glassworks until September 22nd. Afterward it moves to Sydney’s Angel Place Office Tower where it will reside from October 4th through the 29th. It will make a third stop in Brisbane’s Riverside Centre Foyer, where the exhibition will be on display from November 7th to November 11th.

For more information see the official website: www.ranamok.com

-Jason Gutierrez

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