Judges statements

Untitled #01 (from the series Code Black/Riot) 2024 by Hoda Afshar

This is a portrait of immense power, which creates an urgent conversation between viewer and subjects. By handing agency over to her subjects, Hoda Afshar has given these First Nations young people the rare opportunity to frame themselves on their own terms. As part of a group that are often discussed and depicted but rarely given a voice, these figures observe us in turn, giving an assessment of the nation right now. While seemingly incidental, the relationship between the haphazard staging, blurred background and focus points in the foreground make for a bracing, brilliant photograph taken by an artist who truly knows her craft.

Mother dreams on a stone 2024 by Sherry Quiambao

Sherry Quiambao’s portrait is a work that is playful yet resilient. Full of unexpected surprises and contrasts, the artist depicts her mother under a golden emergency blanket resting her head on a stone. The artist uses a reduced colour palate and friction between surfaces to create a portrait that powerfully represents the ongoing trials, emergencies and triages of motherhood. This is a work that contrasts the legendary and the ordinary, the mythic and the domestic and speaks to both the necessity and impossible challenge of finding comfort in hard places.

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Every week, he interviews public figures for the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend magazine. Benjamin is co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer of the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania; creator and co-writer of The Family Law (SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia); and playwright of the sold-out Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company). His next play with Melbourne Theatre Company is an adaptation of Cory Taylor’s Dying: A Memoir (October–November 2025). Benjamin has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology.

Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Serena Bentley has over 20 years’ experience working across the institutional, commercial and non-profit arts sectors in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She has held curatorial positions at ACMI (Melbourne) where she was one of the lead curators on their flagship permanent exhibition The Story of the Moving Image, and at the National Gallery of Victoria where she curated the organisation’s first virtual reality commission, Jess Johnson’s Ixian Gate, along with numerous Australian and international solo and group exhibitions and commissions. Serena has also worked as Artistic Program Manager at artist development organisation Next Wave and in dealer galleries including Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne. From 2022–24 she was Senior Curator at Tauranga Art Gallery in Tauranga Moana, Aotearoa.

Leigh Robb is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia and has 25-years’ experience working in the arts. Her career spans roles at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Thomas Dane Gallery in London, and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Leigh has curated over 50 exhibitions including Radical Textiles (with Rebecca Evans); James Tylor: Turrangka … in the shadows; 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres; Chiharu Shiota: Absence Embodied, and Versus Rodin: bodies across space and time. With a reputation for commissioning significant contemporary projects, Leigh is interested in challenging curatorial models and creating transformative experiences for artists and audiences.