Kate Baker had worked in sculpture, photography and ceramics but something happened when she was given the chance to work with glass about 15 years ago.
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"I was very seduced by glass," Ms Baker said.
"I guess what's exciting about it is at the end of the day it's a liquid. That way you can feel its potential because it's not a static material, it's a malleable material."
Ms
Baker took home the third Hindmarsh Prize on Friday night at Canberra Glassworks for her piece 'Lena on the Tramp'.
The Hindmarsh Prize began in 2016 and now offers $10,000 in prize money, a four-week residency at Canberra Glassworks and up to $2500 in arts freight services.
Ms Baker's piece featured a photo of her young daughter printed on three glass panels and overlaid with her technical notes.
"It's a very biographical work about my experience as an artist and a mother," she said.
She saw it as balancing her ambitions, her work and her obsessions as an artist while trying to stay authentic as a mother.
Ms Baker said the effect was achieved using sandblasting as well as screen and digital printing, using a photo of her then-four-year-old daughter laying on their trampoline.
She said the prize money would help her "enormously" and the fine art freight services included in the prize would her send her work to more exhibitions.
While she has her own studio at home in Sydney, Ms Baker planned to use the glasswork's large kilns during her residency.
Ms Baker previously studied at ANU in Canberra and continued to work on her PhD from Sydney.
She said the capital produced some of the best glass artists in the world, evident by the finalists on show on Friday night.
The finalists work are set to travel to Japan in October to be displayed at the Toyama Glass Museum.
"I think it's a really exciting opportunity to show off their work internationally and to a big international exhibition," Ms Baker said.
Ms Baker was awarded the prize by a judges panel on Friday night who reviewed 21 entries, including her own.
On the panel was Canberra Glassworks artistic director Aimee Frodham, National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich and Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences curator Eva Czernis-Ryl.
John Hindmarsh, the founder of construction company Hindmarsh, started the prize in 2016 to showcase contemporary glass art in the ACT.
The Hindmarsh Prize exhibition is on from September 21-30 at the Fitters Workshop opposite Canberra Glassworks.
