Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives.
Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday.
The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40.
Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives.
"I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said.
"In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content."
The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present.
In a prize with no restrictions on materials for entries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope.
An earlier iteration of the work, exhibited at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024, even contained chilli powder.
There are also suspended elements, with ropes anchored by purple silk sandbags that have been coiled into intestinal shapes.
"I just had a lot of fun working with these sculptural materials, and thinking about what sort of spatial relationships I can build," said Ball.
The judges spent months selecting finalists and landed on a winner after seeing the works installed in the gallery earlier in the week.
In the end, their decision was unanimous and they described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated".
Co-judge Julie Fragar was recently in the spotlight as the 2025 Archibald Prize winner, and said with all the excitement of winning a major award, Ball should expect a few sleepless nights.
"I've been looking at Jack this week thinking, 'hang on to your hat' and have fun with it," said Fragar.
Due to its lack of entry restrictions, the Ramsay Prize has a unique capacity to reflect contemporary art trends, said Fragar, but it's ultimately an art world prize.
"It has great potential to transform an artist's career, but the Ramsay's not 'the horse race', as they say of the Archibald."
Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved back to the NSW capital two years ago.
Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023).
Finalists are on display at the gallery from Saturday until August 31.