Picture: Supplied
MCCLELLAND has announced Michael Sibel as the winner of the inaugural Maquette: Sculpture Award for his work Two Parts (2025), a patinated bronze sculpture measuring 40 x 35 x 35 cm. This new $20,000 acquisitive award, generously supported by celebrated Australian artist Rick Amor, honours sculptural skill and expression and will see the winning work enter the McClelland collection.
Chosen from an impressive pool of 252 entries and 62 finalists, Two Parts captivated the 2025 judge, artist John Meade with its clarity, conceptual depth and refined execution.
“Michael Sibel’s patinated bronze maquette, Two Parts, was a clear standout for me as judge of the inaugural 2025 Maquette: Sculpture Award at McClelland,” said Meade.
“As the title suggests, it is a two-part companion piece: at first glance the pair appear to be a mirror double of one sliced into two, as if they could lock back together. But this is not the case.
As the artist statement accompanying the work explained, the two interdependent forms are “distinct yet incomplete without one another.” With the body embedded, the forms carry within them the sculptural tradition of volume in modern art from Jean Arp to Martin Puryear.
“At the heart of this work is the relationship between two interdependent forms—distinct yet incomplete without one another. Their interaction becomes a meditation on connection: how we hold space for one another, where we meet, resist, and rest,” said Sibel.
“The tension and balance between them reflect the complexity of human relationships—simultaneously intimate and autonomous.”
The Maquette: Sculpture Award celebrates sculptural imagination at its most distilled. Finalists were selected by artist Lisa Roet and McClelland’s Artistic and Executive Director Lisa Byrne, who said:
“The Maquette: Sculpture Award is a celebration of the sculptor’s imagination at its most distilled. We’re proud to support artists working in this vital medium and to welcome a new generation of sculptural ideas into the McClelland collection.”
First published in the Frankston Times – 16 December 2025