Dr Jay Kochel, Manager of the ANU School of Art Gallery and alumnus of the Sculpture Workshop, has been announced as the shared recipient of the M16 Drawing Prize.

The 2016 prize was judged by Susan Best, Convenor of Fine Art and Art Theory at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University and Canberra artist eX DeMedici.

Kochel won for his machine drawing 'Karesansui 1', along with Berenice Carrington, who was awarded for her drawing 'Hair Watch Chain and Myosotis'.

This year's major prize increased to a total of $4500 due to an anonymous donor contributing an additional $2000 to the prize of $2500 offered by Beyond Bank. Along with support from Capital Arts Patrons Organisation (CAPO), Eckerselys and The Framing Store Braddon, the total prize pool for 2016 was $6500.

Kochel describes his drawing as "an exploration of scale and time through a singular output of pen to paper using a small plotter. This image, based on Japanese karesansui rock gardens, is a rendering of a 3-dimensional scan taken of an inflatable rock constructed while I was on a residency in Japan. The scale is 1:1. The drawing is comprised of 15 panels, made up of 469,281 lines, taking 5 days, 4 hours, 23 minutes and 31 seconds for the pen to travel a 2.29 km path."

Recent ANU School of Art Printmedia and Drawing graduate Shags (aka Sharon Gallagher) won the $500 Eckersleys Materials award for her work 'Hurts My Teeth', while ex-Canberran Dean Cross won The Framing Store Award and Queensland artist Kellie O'Dempsey won the CAPO Prize of $1000.

Several ANU SOA alumni, students and staff are included in the 46 finalists selected from almost 180 entries from across Australia and overseas.

The M16 Drawing Prize is on until Sunday 18th of December at M16 Artspace.