Julia Holderness winner of the Zonta Ashburton Women’s Art Award 2025

Congratulations to Julia Holderness who has been announced the winner of the Zonta Ashburton Women’s Art Awards (ZAWAA) 2025.

The judges said of Holderness’ winning artwork 'Villa Margaux: A Studio Archive':

‘This work is generous and unapologetically sensuous and decorative. This work makes us check our assumptions about craft and decorative values and raises questions about authenticity. An installation-work with multiple elements, it challenges the notion of the single art object. Spread across a deep blue table, not only does it offer a feast for the eyes but also the mind. The artist has developed a slippery fiction: a female artist named Florence Weir working in the 1930s who travelled to the Mediterranean as did other real Nz artists such as Frances Hodgkins. We buy into the story willingly and dwell over Florence’s travels, writing, photos, pottery, fabric design and working ideas.’

Returning to the Ashburton Art Gallery and Museum for the ninth year the ZAWAA award seeks to raise the status of visual artists who identify as women and to acknowledge the contribution women make to greater art discourse. The award is aligned with the values of Zonta International, which exists to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy.

The ZAWAA judging panel 2025 consisted of three professionals within the art sector representing academic, curatorial and practice-based backgrounds. They are: full-time practicing artist Jenna Packer, Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at Whitecliffe School of Fine Arts Christina Read, and Curator and Collections Manager at Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi O Whakatū Kyla Mackenzie.

Congratulations to all the artists involved - the 31 finalists and the additional artists included in the Young Generation Award.

www.ashburtonartgallery.org.nz

Featured:

1) Julia Holderness giving a speech on International Womens Day 

2) & 3) Details of Holderness' winning artwork Villa Margaux: A Studio Archive

4) Holderness and the three judges of the ZAWAA award Kyla Mackenzie, Jenna Packer & Christina Read