In the Rooms: A Walk Through the 2025 Archibald, Wynne & Sulman Prizes
Visiting the Archibald, Wynne, and Sulman Prizes has always felt like a small adventure. Even if you have done your homework, browsed the AGNSW website, and flicked through thumbnails on your iPhone or computer, nothing compares to standing in front of the actual works. The experience is immediate and unfiltered.
Scale alone can completely transform an artwork. It can dominate the room with presence or draw you in for a quiet, personal exchange. And then there are the textures: the thick impasto applied with a knife and the subtle brushwork glazed in fine layers. These details often vanish under the flattening lens of a camera, but in person, they come alive. They catch the light and reveal the artist's process in a way no screen ever could.
Winner of Sir John Sulman Prize 2025: Sky painting, oil and oil stick on board, 240 x 240cm by Gene A’Hern
For this reason alone, the journey to see finely crafted artworks, created with conviction and a longing to be seen, is more than worthwhile. These are artists who willingly dive headfirst down the rabbit hole. It is a path where many are called, but few are chosen. This year, the Archibald Prize received 904 entries, with just 57 artists receiving that quiet phone call, inviting them to keep the secret until the finalists were officially revealed.
My own journey began on Friday, 17 May. For once, the weather held, and I arrived ahead of what I expected would be the weekend rush. The Archibald has always sparked debate, but its power to draw a crowd remains undiminished. In many ways, it operates as a kind of symbiotic spectacle. Controversy fuels attention, and attention brings numbers. A steady stream of visitors began flowing through the gallery doors.
The first suite of curated works belonged to the Sulman Prize. Unlike the Archibald and Wynne, the Sulman is judged by a guest artist. This year, Sydney-based Elizabeth Pulie took on the role. The prize recognises works of genre painting, subject painting, or mural projects. Its format is looser and more exploratory, giving artists room to engage with themes such as environmental connection, domestic life, and Indigenous traditions. Many works blend traditional techniques with contemporary viewpoints, resulting in a dynamic and often surprising collection.
The winner, Sky painting by Gene A'Hern, is a large-scale work measuring 240 x 240 cm, created using oil and oil stick on board. Developed through sustained observation of the sky, the painting captures nature's sweeping movements and echoes the rhythmic, almost ritualistic patterns found in the landscape. It speaks to a deep connection between art, the environment, and personal experience.
Two other works that stood out were Wupun (sun mat) by Regina Pilawuk Wilson and Tracing light by Ildiko Kovacs. Though grounded in different cultural and material practices, both explore the theme of light. Wilson achieves this through the rhythmic patterns of traditional weaving translated into paint, while Kovacs responds gesturally to the changing sunlight in her studio.
Stylistically, the Sulman Prize exhibition this year had a unified feel. Many works leaned toward minimalist, gestural mark-making, with a strong emphasis on surface, rhythm, and pattern.
In the next room, we transition into the main affair of the Archibald Prize. It was established in 1921 through the bequest of J.F. Archibald, with the intent to highlight portraiture and support living artists, while also celebrating distinguished Australians. As a young nation at the time, it was seen as a way to create a sense of cultural identity by documenting individuals distinguished in art, letters, science, or politics. This was one of many guidelines stipulated in the bequest.
Like all things, over time the element of change inevitably finds its way into any structure. These guidelines have been tested and challenged, and strict adherence has gradually given way to new ways of interpreting portraiture. What might once have been seen as a dramatic departure is now the norm, a continued exploration of what portraiture can be.
Meditation on time (a left-handed self-portrait), oil on board, 116.8 x 87.9cm by Tsering Hannaford
In contrast to more experimental approaches are artists whose work is grounded in tradition and resonates with the past, while still delivering a distinctly contemporary edge. These artists embrace the classical foundations of portraiture, placing a strong emphasis on the sitter and offering glimpses into their inner world. The aim is not simply to achieve a likeness, but to reveal something deeper, to uncover the sitter's humanity.
For me, Tsering Hannaford's Meditation on time (a left-handed self-portrait) bridges the space between traditional aesthetics and contemporary sensibility. The work is a quiet reflection on time, vulnerability, and the act of painting itself. Executed with her non-dominant hand, the reversed brushwork introduces both conceptual and emotional tension, reinforcing the introspective mood of the piece.
As an eleven-time Archibald Prize finalist, Hannaford's style and technical skill are grounded in a core artistic philosophy: the importance of capturing a subject's presence through direct observation. Her practice reflects a continuum of academic rigour and observational discipline, yet it remains distinctly fresh and contemporary. By staying true to the traditions of painting from life, she does not repeat the past; she revitalises it.
Another favourite of mine is Jonathan Dalton, a seven-time Archibald Prize finalist whose work is shaped by what he describes as “theatrical realism.” His portraits are meticulously staged, rich in symbolic detail, and lit with a sense of quiet drama. Dalton’s sitters exude both gravitas and enigma. There is a cinematic stillness in his compositions that feels timeless, deliberate, and intensely human.
Natasha in the other room, oil on linen, 228.8 x 132.2cm by Jonathan Dalton
In his 2025 Archibald entry, Natasha in the other room, Dalton offers a compelling portrait of fellow artist Natasha Walsh. Isolated in a separate space, regal yet introspective, Natasha becomes both subject and symbol, poised on the threshold of presence and privacy. Her gaze meets ours gently but firmly. “Her eloquent art challenges and redefines the way women both view and are viewed in art,” Dalton notes. She wears a custom gown by Nicol and Ford, designers who were also the subjects of her own 2024 Archibald entry. The silhouette evokes figures ranging from Madame X to Nosferatu, folding layers of art history, authorship, and self mythology into a single, haunting image.
Though grounded in the tradition of classical realism, Dalton infuses his work with psychological complexity. His use of posture, setting, and symbolic objects transforms each portrait into a kind of performance. The scenes are composed and controlled, but never cold. The result is more than a representation. It is a studied narrative of identity, where every detail contributes to a deeper emotional resonance.
Having had the opportunity to collaborate with Dalton on several exhibitions and visit his studio, I have gained a deeper sense of the artist behind the canvas. His commitment is unwavering. Working in a modest studio that bears the full weight of summer and the stillness of winter, Dalton immerses himself in the shifting play of light and shadow. These are tools as essential to him as the brush itself. The space is spare, but alive with quiet intensity, a retreat where patience, precision, and imagination meet.
Originally trained in photography, Dalton’s transition to painting was entirely self directed, and that discipline shows. His works are not simply studies in likeness. They are constructed narratives, portraits as frameworks for broader questions about presence, perception, and identity. Natasha in the other room continues that exploration. It is a portrait that blurs the lines between reality and performance, sitter and artist, past and present. In Dalton’s hands, portraiture becomes something more than observational. It becomes interpretive. And in doing so, he invites us to see not just the subject, but the construction of seeing itself.
As I mentioned earlier, before coming to the gallery I had done some initial research. Naturally, getting an early look at the winner online offered a useful starting point.
Winner of Archibald Prize 2025: Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), oil on canvas, 240 x 180.4cm by Julie Fragar
At first glance, I assumed Julie Fragar's Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene) was a photo montage. Even standing in front of it in the gallery, the painting gave the impression of large monochromatic photographic fragments, cut and layered into a surreal, collaged composition. It was not that the work appeared flat. Rather, it was painted with such extraordinary precision that it seemed almost implausible it had been created with brush and paint alone.
Up close, the truth reveals itself. What initially looked like photographic elements are, in fact, soft, meticulously layered strokes of paint. Fragar's technique is astonishing in its refinement. Every edge, gradient, and shadow is so carefully constructed that it challenges perception. You begin to question whether what you are seeing is paint at all. This optical ambiguity is central to the painting's impact.
The sitter is fellow Brisbane-based artist Justene Williams, known for her multidisciplinary practice spanning performance, video, sculpture, and installation. Monumental in scale at 240 x 180.4 cm, the painting captures not only a complex visual field but also echoes the language of Williams' own art. The composition evokes the flicker of a video still or the frozen moment of a screen capture, casting Williams as Flagship Mother Multiverse, levitating above a constellation of objects and symbols drawn from her creative universe. It is a work that balances control and chaos, built with remarkable precision and dense with meaning.
Fragar renders Williams not as a passive muse, but as a commanding presence, an architect and protagonist of a layered, symbolic world. The result is a portrait that is both chaotic and controlled, visually rich yet conceptually clear. It stands out not just for its technical mastery, but for the depth it invites the viewer to navigate.
Cormac in Arcadia, oil on linen, 195.5 x 260.4cm by Marcus Wills
As impressed as I had been up until that point with what the Archibald had to offer, I had a mild jaw dropping moment. Not a stroke, but a wow. I walked into the next room and stood in front of Marcus Wills’ Cormac in Arcadia. My initial thought was, where does someone find the time to undertake a work of this scale, measuring 195.5 by 260.4 cm, and this level of ambition? There are around 26 individual figures in the composition. I may have missed one or two, but each is painted with a striking sense of individuality.
The painting carries a brooding tonality in the tradition of the Max Meldrum school, with every figure deliberately positioned like actors in a grand tableau, all dressed in contemporary clothing. This could easily belong in one of the great museums of the world, the kind that examines the human form through centuries of painting.
For me, it was a standout work. Monumental in both scale and vision, it meets the Archibald's criteria, yet also pushes against the edges of what we typically expect from a portrait. In doing so, it broadens the conversation about the possibilities of portraiture in a contemporary context.
As with Julie Fragar's painting, it was only on closer inspection that the surface revealed its secrets. I noticed fine grooves carved back into the layers of paint, giving the work a subtle relief effect. These incised lines caught the light differently, creating slight modulations that introduced a faintly sculptural quality. The highlights fell exactly where they should, as if the light had been directed across form, not just surface.
When I stepped out of the Archibald rooms and into the next space, I found myself in front of the Wynne Prize. It is a much-loved award that shifts the attention from people to place. Where the Archibald draws you into psychology and personality, the Wynne opens up into the landscape. The works feel broader, more physical. You see looser brushwork, bigger gestures, and a kind of visual breathing space.
Winner of Wynne Prize 2025: Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal, oil on linen, 200 x 150.4cm by Jude Rae
The prize celebrates the Australian environment in all its diversity. From landscape painting to figurative sculpture, it often reveals a more intuitive and physical relationship between the artist and the world around them. This year, the Wynne Prize received 758 entries, from which 52 works were selected as finalists. The winner was Jude Rae, for her painting Pre-dawn Sky over Port Botany Container Terminal.
A Sydney-based artist and three-time Wynne finalist, Rae depicted the view from her Redfern apartment, capturing the lights of the container terminal beneath a vast pre-dawn sky. The painting, measuring 200 x 150.4 cm and executed in oil on linen, evokes the stillness of early morning as seen from her window. Above the rigid grid of industrial lights, a soft atmospheric expanse stretches across the canvas. The vast sky, quiet and luminous, sits gently over the constructed world below.
Reminiscent of Clarice Beckett's nocturnes, Rae's painting distills a fleeting urban moment into something meditative and timeless. While deeply personal in subject, it resonates on a broader scale, offering a contemplative image of the spaces we inhabit and overlook.
Vistas that would have been a common sight some years ago now feel almost exotic. They are places rarely encountered except on day trips to wine regions or after taking a wrong turn that leads, unexpectedly, into open country. As more of us live as city dwellers within an expanding urban sprawl, an undeveloped block on the edge of a housing estate is often the closest thing we experience as landscape.
It is in this context that Lucy Culliton's Cliff Hole, Bottom Bullock brings us gently but firmly back to the natural world, albeit one that has been tamed and worn by the presence of livestock. The scene she depicts is vast, cleared, and marked by use. It is pastoral, but not idealised. This is land that has been worked, not simply admired. The paddock becomes both a memory and a presence. It is expansive, grounded, and increasingly unfamiliar to many.
Cliff Hole, Bottom Bullock, oil on canvas, 183.4 x 244cm by Lucy Culliton
The painting's scale is encompassing, cinematic in its horizontal sweep, with a high horizon line that loops back through the reflection of the sky in the meandering creek below. Culliton's work serves as a quiet reminder that landscape painting still holds the power to reconnect us to place. Though traditional in medium, her approach is direct and tactile. This is not the landscape as a sweeping romantic vista. It is dirt, fencing, and working land, depicted with an affection that is felt rather than embellished.
In a show filled with psychological portraiture and conceptual tension, Cliff Hole, Bottom Bullock offers something quietly profound. It is a return to the physical, a reconnection to place. It draws the viewer out of the gallery and into the paddock, not as a visitor, but as someone who has been there before.
While the Wynne Prize was originally conceived to recognise either landscape painting or figure sculpture, the pairing has always felt more structural than conceptual. It remains a legacy quirk rather than a deliberate dialogue. But 2025 marks a turning point. With 16 sculptural works among the 52 finalists, this year presents the largest showing of sculpture in the prize's recent history. Sculpture now feels less like an appended category and more like a fully integrated presence, one that brings material weight, humour, and spatial tension into the gallery.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran's Seated figure with brown spiky mask exemplifies this shift. Irreverent, exuberant, and unmistakably larger than life, it erupts from the floor in a riot of colour and texture. It does not engage with landscape in any traditional sense. Instead, it explores identity, belief systems, and a kind of chaotic, handmade divinity. In a prize that has often strained to balance its dual focus, works like this suggest that sculpture no longer needs to justify its place. It claims it fully and unapologetically.
A subtler form of subversion appears in Kenny Pittock's Throw caution to the wind, which blends wit with conceptual precision. So unassuming it nearly vanished into the space, I walked past it several times before realising it was one of the works of art on display. I had even reached the point where I thought it might be fun to take a photo of the warning sign, as if the ubiquitous gallery caution signage itself could be mistaken for art. Only then did I realise that was precisely the point.
Pittock reimagines the familiar yellow caution sign, replacing its utilitarian warning with the invitation to throw caution to the wind. Cast in bronze and painted with enamel and synthetic polymer, the sculpture elevates a mundane object into a quietly profound gesture. It speaks to our collective anxieties, our craving for order, and the liberating absurdity of letting go.
As I stepped back into the hum of the city, the works stayed with me, not as images but as feelings. The drag of a brushstroke. The weight of stillness. The shimmer of light on bronze. Each prize carried its own rhythm. The Sulman danced between wit and tradition. The Archibald stared back at us. And the Wynne breathed.
This was not a survey of contemporary art. It was something looser. A constellation. A snapshot of culture in motion. A reminder that great art does not just show us the world, it slows us down. And in that pause, something shifts.
As I briefly mentioned earlier, many are called and few are chosen. From the array of exceptional works on display, my selections spoke to me for reasons that are personal, subjective, and deeply felt. Not everything needs to be experienced the same way. Some works whisper. Others insist. And it is in this diversity that a new generation of artists walks through the door and finds inspiration. They take what moves them and shape it in whatever way they choose.
