A performance-based video shot in a single take, called Witness, has won Ida Sophia the $100,000 Ramsay Art Prize.

Informed by Ida Sophia's early childhood experience of observing her father's baptism, Witness was shot at The Pool of Siloam in Wirmalngrang/Beachport in regional South Australia.

It depicts the artist undergoing a repetitive and intense series of submergences that take a single baptism to the level of relentless obsession.

Witness was chosen from more 300 entries from across Australia, and will be premiered in the Ramsay Art Prize 2023 exhibition, before becoming part of the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection.

A former student of The Marina Abramovic Institute in Greece, Mount Gambier-born Ida Sophia is a performance artist with a hybrid media, sculpture and installation practice that draws on the body to render performative works.

Beginning with personal narratives, Ida Sophia’s work is characterised by conceptual examinations of universal, uncomfortable human experiences such as hope, regret, familial tension and grief.

The Ramsay Art Prize is presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia and supported in perpetuity by the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation,

It is open to Australian artists under the age of 40 who work in any medium including sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, installation and the moving image.

The Ramsay Art Prize 2023 also includes a $15,000 People’s Choice Prize, supported by sponsor LK, that is chosen by public vote and announced on Friday 11 August.

The Ramsay Art Prize 2023 exhibition runs from 27 May until 27 August 2023 at the Art Gallery of South Australia and admission is free.