News

Exciting news for Belem Lett who is a finalist in this year's Mosman Art Prize for his work 'Fire Walk With Me'.

The Mosman Art Prize is the longest running and most prestigious municipal art prize in Australia. Winning entries form the basis of the Mosman Art Collection, a valuable and historic collection that surveys Australian painting since 1947. The Mosman Art Prize is an acquisitive award of $50,000 sponsored by Mosman Council.

The annual exhibition will take place 10 August - 6 October.

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'Fire Walk With Me' 2024
oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel
150 x 122cm

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James Drinkwater's new publication 'I Love You More Than Paintings. Works 2008-2024' has been released. Containing a comprehensive survey of James Drinkwater's artworks to date, as well as writings from Louise Martin-Chew, Ineke Dane, and Nicholas Thompson.

“James Drinkwater paintings are physical, muscular, messy - articulating something that Picasso started - blending nameable and unnameable or recognisable imagery with nondescript painted signs, dancing in a frenetic ballet of attack after attack, sometimes confounding sometimes parting the seas of expression to a clear cohesive rhythm where painted cacophony reigns, not over matter but out of matter. Personal, familial, local of somewhere faraway and right around the corner.”

Julian Schnabel

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Cover of 'I Love You More Than Paintings. Works 2008-2024' by James Drinkwater

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It is with great pleasure that we share the news that Belem Lett is a finalist in the 2024 Sunshine Coast National Art Prize for his work ‘A Love Song’.

The acquisitive Sunshine Coast National Art Prize is a dynamic visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary 2D and new media arts practice in Australia. The finalists exhibition will be held at the Caloundra Regional Gallery from 24 August - 13 October 2024.

Belem Lett’s work transcend representation and instead embraces gestural abstraction, delving into the interplay of light and colour. Lett transforms the canvas into a dynamic arena where paint and surface coalesce. Each stroke is laden with vibrant hues, embodying physical momentum that echoes the artist’s gestures and movements.

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‘A Love Song’ 2024

oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

150 x 122 cm
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We are pleased to share that Chris Zanko is a finalist in this year’s Sunshine Coast National Art Prize for his work ‘The Bathroom’.

The national acquisitive Sunshine Coast National Art Prize is a dynamic visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary 2D and new media arts practice in Australia. The finalists exhibiton will be exhibited at the Caloundra Regional Gallery from 24 August - 13 October 2024.

‘From the house I grew up in to the share houses and rentals I've lived in since, there has always been a variation of this tile in the bathroom, laundry, or kitchen. In recent years, I've begun to collect different colour variations of it. Sometimes I feel as though I've seen them all, then I incidentally come across a new colour motif. Synonymous with the mid-century red brick and fibro houses in my local area of Wollongong, many of the houses and buildings with these tiles are disappearing. Carving this design into wood is a way of enacting a sense of permanence, as the marks cannot be undone.’

Chris Zanko, 2024

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‘The Bathroom’ 2023

acrylic on wood relief carving

59 x 54 cm

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery has opened 'News from Nowhere', a lively two-person exhibition bringing together Melbourne artist Brendan Huntley and jeweller Lisa Walker. Despite working in distinct mediums, both artists embrace imperfection and humour as central creative forces.

Huntley’s contribution anchors the exhibition with paintings, objects and works on paper that feature his distinctive, emotive faces and handmade sensibility. His practice—rooted in instinct, material curiosity and a playful push-pull between craft and fine art—invites visitors into a space of reflection rather than resolution. The works hover between personal narrative and abstraction, prompting viewers to consider their relationships with people, objects and themselves. Together, Huntley and Walker's works invite viewers into open-ended encounters, which prompt reflection on how we relate to each other, the things we make, and the things we keep close. The exhibition highlights both artists’ deep engagement with craft and the body, celebrating the human impulse to create and the meaning that emerges in the process.

Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery is the largest public gallery in Melbourne’s south-east and has a curatorial focus on commissioning artists who engage with contemporary issues and the region’s unique environment, offering audiences a generous, open-ended encounter with varied artists.

The exhibition is open 22 June - 18 August 2024 at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.

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Installation image of Brendan Huntley's work in 'News from Nowhere' at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, courtesy Mark Ashkanasy

Congratulations Eliza Gosse whose portrait of Australian designer Emma Mulholland is a finalist in this year's Salon des Refusés. 'Emma and Norby on holiday' is now hanging at S.H. Ervin Gallery until 25 August, 2024.


The Salon des Refusés was initiated by the S.H. Ervin Gallery in 1992 in response to the large number of works entered into the Archibald Prize which were not selected for display in the official exhibition.

Each year the Salon des Refusés panel is invited to go behind the scenes of the judging process for the annual Archibald Prize for portraiture and Wynne Prize for landscape painting and figure sculpture at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, to select an exhibition from the many hundreds of works entered in both prizes but not chosen for the official award exhibition. The Salon des Refusés exhibition has established an excellent reputation that rivals the selections in the ‘official’ exhibition, with works selected for quality, diversity, humour and experimentation, and which examine contemporary art practices, different approaches to portraiture and responses to the landscape.

- S. H Erving Gallery

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Eliza Gosse

'Emma and Norby on holiday' 2024

oil on birch plywood

180 x 115 cm

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Congratulations Vipoo Srivilasa whose work ‘Memory’ (2018) forms part of the Namedropping exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart. This expansive exhibition presents around 200 artworks and objects, examining the realm of status, influence and the power we place in a name.

‘Memory’ (2018) consists of five porcelain and cobalt pigment figures with gold lustre details, housed in wooden structures. Each figure relates to a childhood sporting memory from the artist and features different sporting equipment or uniforms to reflect this. The porcelain statues are each mounted in uniform L-shaped wooden blocks, inspired by an old trophy from the Australian Sport Museum collection.

On now and current until 21 April 2025.

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‘Memory’ (2018)

porcelain and cobalt pigment figures with gold lustre details

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Exciting news for Christopher Zanko who is a finalists in the 2024 Waverley Art Prize for his work 'Midday brick house'.

The Waverley Art Prize finalist exhibition is on from 6 July - 18 August at the Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney.

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'Midday brick house' 2023

Flashè on Wood relief carving

122 x 99 cm

Image courtesy Jessica Maurer

Congratulations to Belem Lett who has been chosen as a finalist in the 2024 Waverley Art Prize for his work 'Body Language'. The Waverley Art Prize finalist exhibition is on from 6 July - 18 August at the Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney.

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'Body Language', 2024

Oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

150 x 122cm

image courtesy Jessica Maurer

Congratulations to Belem Lett for his selection as a 2024 finalist for the The Vincent prize. Belem was selected for his work 'Pollinate' and can be seen at the finalists exhibition which opens this Friday 14 June 6-9pm at Scratch Art Space, Marrickville.

The Vincent Prize was established by art courier service Art Van Go for their customers that missed out on selection for The Archibald, Wynne, Sulman & the Salon des Refuses.

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Pollinate, 2024

Oil, clear primer on brushed aluminium composite panel

56 x 48 cm