20th Anniversary Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize

Photo: Anna Kučera

Dr Lara Strongman is Director Curatorial and Digital at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. She was formerly Head Curator at Christchurch Art Gallery, and Deputy Director at City Gallery Wellington in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Lara is an award-winning writer and editor, and was a long time film and TV critic for Radio New Zealand. She was a member of Christchurch's Public Art Advisory Group from 2008-2019. She moved to Sydney in 2019.

Joanna Capon OAM is an Art Historian, Industrial Archaeologist, curator, writer, cataloguer and lecturer. She is a current Committee Member of the Museum of the Chinese in Australia (MOCA). Her past appointments include Chair of the Australian Centre for Photography, the Operation Art Management Group and the Fundraising Committee of the Big Anxiety Festival, Chair and member of the Children's Hospital at Westmead Health Care Quality Committee, Board member of the Sydney Children's Hospital Network, The George Institute for Global Health, Museums and Galleries NSW, Editorial Advisory Board of Art and Australia, member of the Visual Arts and Crafts Committee of the NSW Ministry for the Arts, member of SOCOG Public Art Advisory Committee, The Australia China Council. Joanna has been the honorary art curator at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead for 21 years. Her books include Guide to Museums in China and has published numerous articles in a variety of publications on European art history, Chinese art, industrial archaeology and art as part of a healing environment. Joanna has lectured in Australia and UK.

A pioneer of Australian style and internationally acclaimed artist and designer, Jenny Kee AO's vibrant art and design reflects her passion for the unique and precious Australian environment. Over 40 years, Jenny's work has appeared on silk, on paper, on wool, on cotton, on ceramics and on canvas. Her creativity has been shaped by an eclectic mix of global influences, from Aboriginal Australian to early European, and the exotic arts of Africa, India, Asia and South America. Jenny's distinctive style has evolved, steeped in a passion for nature, to reflect a "strong, spontaneous, bold and optimistic" Australia.

Her designs are world renowned, exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian National Gallery, London's Victoria & Albert Museum, the Morimura Museum in Tokyo and Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. Jenny's work has been featured in international magazines from Italian Vogue to New York's Women's Wear Daily. Her Opal designs were used by Chanel in Paris and her Koala knits worn by Diana, Princess of Wales. She has received numerous commissions, including works for Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian Bicentenary and her breathtaking parade of costumes for the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

In 2001 Jenny shifted her focus inwards, writing her autobiography from her home in the Blue Mountains wilderness. A Big Life was published by Penguin Australia in 2006. In the Queen's Birthday Honours of 2018, Jenny Kee awarded an AO (Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia) for distinguished service to the Australian fashion industry as a textile artist and clothing designer and through contributions to the environment and conservation.

In 2019-2020 the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney staged Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson: Step into Paradise, the first in-depth survey that captures the dynamic energy of Linda and Jenny's creative partnership. It draws on more than four decades of one of the most influential pairings in the history of Australian fashion, examining the influences, inspirations and the compelling stories behind their work.