Hawkesbury Art Prize

Welcome to the

HAWKESBURY ART PRIZE

(registered not for profit organisation)

The Hawkesbury Art Prize is a biennial prize awarded to an Australian artist for a painting, drawing or work on paper with the theme of Contemporary Australian Identity.

Open to Australian artists, the prize is awarded for the most outstanding work created in the past 12 months. The theme invites artists to respond to the concept of contemporary identity in Australian life. The prize excludes photography, textiles, embroidery, and sculpture. The art prize is judged by a panel made up of three notable figures in the Australian art world. The Hawkesbury Art Prize is a significant Australian award.

IMPORTANT DATES 2025

ENTRIES OPEN: 14th April 2025

ENTRIES CLOSE: 18th July 2025

NOTIFICATION OF FINALISTS: 30th July 2025

WINNERS ANNOUNCED AND AWARDS NIGHT: 30th August 2025

EXHIBITION OF FINALISTS: 30th August – 14th September 2025

2025 JUDGES:

Rhonda Davis, Senior Curator at Macquarie University

Dr David Cubby, Senior Lecturer Western Sydney University

Alan Jones: Artist, Sydney

SPONSORS

Bendigo Bank (Community Bank North Richmond and Richmond), Glenhuntly Estate, Purple Noon Gallery, Pieter Huveneers Bequest, John C M Bennett, Tizzana Winery, Bilpin Cider, Artsup, Mirror Vision, Richmond Fruit Market, Kurrajong Kitchens and Softcom Web Solutions.

2025 Winner

Highly Commended

Local Resident Prize

Packers Prize

Commended

At ground level exotic grasses become evasive weeds, surfaces manicured in an attempt to rearrange nature. Trees and plants positioned against artificial ground lines attempting to bring the natural ground line into a new perspective.
Viewing what is at the edge or hidden just beneath the surface, and without the ground line we lose our references and how to care for our environment.
Imagining the earth worm’s perspective on the world and through it examine the whole universe. Microenvironment affects the global macroenvironment.
Giving voice to murmurings of water and wind in the grass; exploring the patterns of steppingstones or the fence posts in a paddock. — Roslyn Kean - Ground Lines

I was inspired by the recent documentary film about Dale Frank called Nobody's Sweetie. I learned that he is in the process of creating a 50 acre rare species dry garden landscape on his property in Singleton, with a vast array of rescue trees of historic and horticultural significance. I have spent a great deal of time exploring desert climates in California and Mexico and painting those subjects. The gardens Dale are creating are ambitious, extraordinary and inspiring. After visiting there on a recent open day, I have started a series of works based on these plantings and design. — David McKay - Dale Frank Botanical Garden

98 x 98 cm, Plaster, oil, oil sticks, charcoal, Varn on canvas, $2000

‘Myall Station’ is a work created over a lot days, a work of many layers. It is a landscape and tells a story of the land in which we live, harsh, unforgiving but at the same time, fragile.
The work is complete when I can feel its history, its wholeness and its presence. — Anna Henderson - Myall Station

Katherine Boland - Bouquet No. 3

100 x 80 cm Digital collage, archival paper, $2950

Bouquet No. 3 borrows the language of a floral arrangement, but its blooms are far from traditional. Composed of photographic fragments of my burnt timber paintings, native flora, invasive species—and uncanny, AI-generated forms, it sits at the intersection of the organic and the artificial. The black background evokes scorched earth, grounding the work in the aftermath of the 2019–2020 Black Summer fires. This work reflects the fragility and complexity of Australian ecosystems, bearing witness to the impact of human activity on the landscape. It is both pause and prelude—a meditation on destruction, stillness, and the stubborn return of life in the aftermath of fire. — Katherine Boland - Bouquet No. 3

For much of my life , I felt an unspoken pressure to choose between two cultural identities. During my recent travles to Turkiye, I came to understand that I embody a synthesis of both, that my identity is not divided, but a dynamic composite of dual heritage.
The colour palette in this work emerges from a deeply sensory and emotional connection to place. It suggests that colour is not merely something we see, but something that resides within us, embedded in memory, instinct and possibly in our blood. We are drawn to colours that resonate on an intuituve level, shaped by the visual languages of our environments. In this painting,colour becomes a site of recognition and belonging. — Evie Adasal - Dual Heritage

Joseph McGlennon Embers 1 (Cockatoo One)

Lucila Zentner Kangaroo

Anna Nordstrom River Run Blue

Missy Townsend Gariwerd Skyline

Rowan Robertson Autumn Light on the Mountain

Shane Bonsujet Sunday Arvo: snag on the way out

Matilda Dumas Washing Day

Nick Coulson Daphne Street

Victoria Peel Three Mile Fire

Liss Finney Self Portrait as a Wetsuit

Florence Kelly Sparkling Water and Oysters

Shane Bonsujet The Gauntlet Narrated by David Attenborough

Emily Imeson Prehistory, Secret Survival

Angus Fisher Carrion #3

Mary Tonkin Out There, Kalorama

Jane Guthleben Hawkesbury Gentrification

Debbie Mackinnon The First Days of Spring

Hellie Mahony Fowlers Gap, near the Ochre House

Julia Griffin Larapinta

Amy Raymond Early Risers

Kate Dorrough A Changing Bush Fire Season

Elliot Nimmo A great soak – morning

Ashley Frost Escarpment Angophora Study

Catherine Parker Road Trip to Heaven

Erika Cholich Purloined Loveliness

Dan Withey This Australia

Deidre Morrison View East From Streeton Lookout, Freemans Reach

Paul Gorjan Two different things

Melanie Hind 10 Weeks

Fiona Verity Interiorscapes – Open the window – let the garden in

Julie Paterson Threatened, Endangered, Extinct

Anne Kwasner Souvenirs of Untold Stories

Laura Patterson Ballanjui Fern Specimens

Dianne Tchumut Weavings

Carissa Karamarko Where shall we go today, little Banksia

Fiona Dobrijevich Maris Ocularis

Matthew Wright apostrophe

Shahroud Ghahani Erasure

Mark Callaghan Long Beach Massacre

Ruth Rawle A few beers

Jill Dunkerton Coastal Pool

About

First prize of $15,000 plus a two week at residency at Glenhuntly Estate in the Hawkesbury is awarded to the winning entry. Two highly commended prizes of $1000 plus an additional art residency are also awarded. Three eminent visual arts professionals judge the prize and select the finalists. The art prize is for a painting that is inspired by contemporary Australian identity. Artists are invited to respond to the concept of contemporary identity in Australian life. Accordingly, the theme often helps artists explain the rapidly changing environment in which they live, or conversely, promotes diverse portrayals of history, landscape, place, and ways of seeing. The ensuing exhibition showcases the freshness and vitality of the creative artists that enrich our Australian communities. The winning works form an important collection of modern and contemporary art reflecting evolution in Australian identity, landscape and arts practice in the contemporary era. The prize has been set up in Hawkesbury as a not for profit project.