Dunedin artists took centre-stage at this year's Portage Ceramic Awards, winning the premier prize with two large-scale, colour-infused works described by the internationally selected Awards' judge as ambitious in concept, form and materiality.

Acclaimed ceramic artist, Jim Cooper shared the country's top ceramic award with Madeleine Child and Philip Jarvis who are known for their distinctively coloured works.

The prize money of $12,000 was presented to Cooper for his work Drug Jars and Vendor and Child and Jarvis for their work Doodads & Doodahs and Widespread Occurrence of Possible Symbioses at a ceremony held in Auckland tonight.

This year's Portage Ceramic Awards judge Scott Chamberlin, a successful exhibiting ceramicist and Professor of Ceramics at Colorado University said Cooper's work was unafraid of ceramic orthodoxy and genuinely bold in its pseudo primitiveness handling of clay.

'Beholden to the material lushness and glassy, flowing gooeyness of the medium, Cooper's work is a feast for the eyes.'

Chamberlin said Child and Jarvis's work showed extraordinary observation skills which raised wonderful questions about nature versus culture and pays homage to various disciplines of decoration and ornamentation.

'The work is creepy, peculiar, and also possessing of a stunning beauty much like some of the natural occurrence it is inspired by. One sees a respect for and deep knowledge of ceramic processes.'

Also announced were the three Portage Ceramic Awards Merit Winners, Phillipa Durkin (Wellington) for Felling the Tree to Obtain the Fruit, Kristy Palleson (Wellington) for Banks and Emily Siddell (Sandringham, Auckland) for her work, Flock.

West-Aucklanders John Parker, Sang Sool Shim & Keum Sun Lee were jointly awarded the John Green Waitakere Artist Award.

The winners were chosen from almost 200 works submitted by artists nationwide, a record number of entries in the Awards nine-year history.

Chamberlin points out that while the winning works and those selected for exhibition could compete anywhere in the world with confidence, the overall quality of the entries was of concern.

'The majority of the works submitted need to be more contemporary; artists need to take more risks.'

There are fewer exhibiting pieces this year; just 29 compared to almost 50 in previous years.

These works, which include the winning pieces, can be viewed at Lopdell House Gallery from 16 October.

The Portage Licensing Trust established the Awards in 2001 as a showcase for New Zealand ceramics. It is due to the generosity of the Portage Licensing Trust that after almost a decade, the awards are the country's best known barometer identifying our finest ceramic artists.