Akira Kamada from Tomerong is a sculptor and installation artist whose central concern is the impact of human behaviour on the environment, combined with an artistic respect and reverence for the beauty of natural materials. 

His work, entitled Suspended in Time, is a large woven piece in the shape of a horizontal teardrop.

“As it falls to the ground, a drop of water cannot be seen mid-air, by the naked human eye, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. 

“This piece is inspired by my gratitude for every drop of rain that falls my way. 

“The weaving together of local vines to create it puts me into a meditative state, a different time dimension,” Mr Kamada said.  

Mr Kamada likes to create his pieces from the materials he finds around him in his everyday life. He frequently uses natural materials such as twigs, nuts, seeds, branches, or vine, bundling or weaving them into various organic shapes. 

His large scale work is suspended from a tree and nearly didn’t make it.

“On the trip up some of the frame broke so I had to do a bit of repair work when we got here,” he said. 

Born in Japan in 1955, Mr Kamada studied photography and painting before migrating to Australia in 1987. While working as a landscape gardener, specialising in contemporary Japanese garden design, he studied ceramics and sculpture, and began exhibiting in group shows and public exhibitions from the early 2000s. 

He received the Clitheroe Foundation Emerging Artists’ Mentor Program Scholarship in 2008. 

One of his favourite things about the exhibition, the world’s largest temporary sculpture park, is that people can feel his work.

“So many things are banned but I like to encourage people to come up and touch the artwork, especially children,” he said. 

Berry artist Michael Purdy’s work, Resignation 2014, is a dedication to his late father, John Spencer Purdy, who was twice Australian Chess Champion.

“In the game of chess the laying down of one’s king signifies resignation, the acceptance of defeat. In essence it is saying that the king is dead and the battle is lost. 

“The work explores themes of our own mortality, of accepting our fate. As the large stone chess piece slumps in resignation its relaxed form reflects acceptance of mankind’s inevitable fate,” Mr Purdy said.

Mr Purdy studied landscape architecture at the University of NSW but learned his practical skills building sandstone-based landscapes for the Sydney market.

Years of experimentation have allowed Mr Purdy to make sandstone appear to do things it isn’t meant to do. 

The $60,000 prize for the winner is the most generous sculpture prize in NSW.