Introducing the 2025 Tom Malone Glass Art Prize Winner Peter Bowles.
Quiescent Object: Kepler-186f
Winner’s comments
"This, my 5th time shortlisted for TMP and I’m absolutely thrilled to have this work acknowledged by such an esteemed panel of judges. My sincere thanks and gratitude to them for what must have been an incredibly difficult decision to make given the quality and calibre of fellow selected artists.”
“The TMP is an extraordinary prize, it continues to seek out and celebrate contemporary glass in all of its diversity right across Australia. It always offers a fascinating insight into what's happening in both institutions and independent studios. There is always a refreshing sense of inclusion and inclusivity that is so incredibly important to catch and present to an increasingly sophisticated audience. It's an absolute testament to the initial vision and continuing support and dedication to the prize.”
“I've never been so sure, and at the same time, so unsure about this work. It's a genuine paradox that I'm still having to reconcile. I can genuinely say it's taken me over 40 years as a glassmaker to arrive at this work. There is a complexity to its making that I thrive on, and a simplicity to its presence that I aspire to.”
“Technically the work has its roots in some 18 century glass recipes from the Stourbridge area in the UK where my journey with glass began over 40 years ago. I had an extraordinary opportunity to review some archival recipe books, hand-written in beautiful copperplate on fading and fragile paper notebooks. It was like hearing voices from the past, an echo, and for me the start of a new investigation. I've reworked the chemistry making the recipes far less toxic than they were back then, and modified them for use in my own studio. A year later, after testing, modifications and more testing, I've made a glass where I can control it's transition of transparency, translucency and opacity through the numerous stages of making. It's genuinely fascinating and compelling to me as a maker.”
“My sincere thanks go to my partner Anne Clifton, who has unwaveringly supported me in the development and making of this work. Her patience with me and the process, her skills and strength as a fellow maker and her relentless spirit as an artist are all very much part of the work.”
Judges Statement:
We are extremely pleased to announce that Peter Bowles is the winner of the Tom Malone Prize 2025 for his work Quiescent Object: Kepler-186F. In his succinct artist statement, Peter outlines his aim that the work exists as an entity that is ‘neither inert nor expressive’, and that, we extrapolate, it might be not a reflection on, but a material embodiment of galactic energies as they fall into states of dynamic equilibrium. We might imagine achieving such an outcome in a piece of glass to be impossible, yet Peter’s technical skill has provided him with the capacity to realise this truly ambitious aspiration.
In perfectly fulfilling this aim, the result is a piece of extraordinarily quiet energy. Animating the latent vitality of composure, the work’s lustrous milkiness appears at once languidly peaceful and to convey a universe in rapid motion.
Its perfectly cohesive form and sheer tremendous beauty made this a work we were continually drawn back to, wondering ‘just how did this come to be?’ Replete with low-key (yet wholly compelling) details like the revelation of the artist's amazing technical skills if one lifts the object and looks under the base (which will remain, to most, teasingly off limits), the deft separation of colours and their finish, it is a work that repays continued engagement.
Indeed, such is the gentle power of the work that it might even have shaped our judging process. It was an occasion that was genuinely calm, pleasurable and rewarding; in a natural, almost leisurely manner, we found ourselves circulating the gallery, as a group and individually, becoming unhurriedly acquainted with the sophisticated complexity of each of the works in this year’s high-quality shortlist. As in Peter’s work, there is much to appreciate here, much to gravitate to and revolve around. Congratulations Peter and all the short-listed artists.
Dante Marioni, Dr Stefano Carboni, Dr Robert Cook
