FOR the past 14 years artist and designer Ron Gomboc from the Gomboc Gallery Studio in Middle Swan has been creating the sculpture masterpieces for the Australian film industry’s AACTA Awards.

The prestigious award is presented annually in Australia and Los Angeles in the US to international actors and people associated in the film industry as part of Australia Week.

“This is the only award in the industry that is signed by the artist, designer and maker,” Mr Gomboc said.

International award recipients include renown international actors such as Meryl Streep, Leonardo Di Caprio, Robert De Niro and many others.

In the Australian film industry most of the well-known names like Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman have a Gomboc sculpture in their collection.

Mr Gomboc has recently returned from the Gold Coast after attending this year’s presentation.

“I had the privilege in meeting and greeting a number of producers and actors in the 2025 presentation, including Tom Gleason who won two AACTA awards in 2025,” he said.

“It was quite exciting to see Robbie Williams receiving one of my awards for his biopic Better Man and the producers of Boy Swallows Universe along with legends like Paul Kelly on stage receiving his AACTA award for his life-time contribution to music and film How to Make Gravy.

“Being a Western Australian, for me one memorable highlight over the fourteen years that I have been making the AACTA award was when a team of Western Australian filmmakers were recipients of five AACTA Awards for their documentary about Brett Whitely.

“They asked the Australian Film Institute to send the awards to the Gomboc Gallery as being Western Australians they wanted me as the creator of the awards to present it to them for their archives.”

Gomboc Gallery Sculpture Park has evolved into being an internationally recognised venue exhibiting artists from all over the world.

The 4.5-hectare gallery remains a continuous work in progress and is totally funded by Mr Gomboc and his wife Terrie through private and corporate commissions and has remained free to public for the past 45 years in Middle Swan.

Over time Mr Gomboc has created major works for Sultan of Brunei, Sultan of Oman and Lord Michael Bishop for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and people like Andrew Forrest who commissioned him to design his largest sculpture to date for the Fortescue Mining Group 12 metre memorial for the victims of Cyclone George in Port Hedland, to name a few.

Arriving in Swan in 1961, the family lived in Midland then moved to Bellevue and in 1980 they purchased a property in Middle Swan that became Gomboc Gallery.

“Originally it was going to be my own studio/gallery but it soon turned into a gallery for other artists to exhibit due to demand for sculptural space,” he said.

Forty-five years later it has one of the largest collections of international sculptors work on display for sale and a close association with Sculpture by the Sea where works remain on show for sale post Cottesloe exhibition.

“There is so much that has gone from Gomboc Gallery Studio in the Swan Valley to  the world, not the least and most current the AACTA awards,” he said.

Mr Gomboc’s own exhibiting with Sculpture by the Sea has continued for the past twenty years in Cottesloe and Bondi for 21 years, being the only WA artist to achieve this.

It is his own work that has been financing the whole concept, with Terrie managing the gallery.

“Despite the demise of cultural interest that artists in WA have been going through and financially difficult period we are optimistic for better times ahead,” he said.

He has also received numerous other awards including the City of Swan’s Citizen of the Year award for his contribution to the arts in 1991, the Midland region Telstra Small Business Development award and Swan Chamber of Commerce Excellence in Small Business award in 1996.

Mr Gomboc was also the recipient of the 1993 WA Week Council Citizen of the Year award for contribution to the arts.

Further information can be found at www.gomboc-gallery.com.au