Saturday 25 March 2023   10:00am

The Gallery is open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, from 10am to 4pm. Entry is always free.

The Lester Prize is among Australia’s most recognised and prestigious fine art prizes, that places artists and the community proudly front and centre. This selection of portraits is from the 2022 Lester Prize exhibition.

40 finalists were chosen from more than 700 entries received from artists across Australia. Amongst the 2022 Finalists are 13 from Victoria, 11 from WA, 10 from NSW, three from QLD, two from Tasmania and one from South Australia. The Lester Prize 2022 sees the return of former Finalists Hamid Abbasi, Sophia Alone, Andy Quilty, Jill Talbot, Nathan Paddison and Elizabeth Barden.

The Finalists were chosen by an independent pre-selection panel consisting of Dr Clarissa Ball, Director of the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies, Amy Barrett-Lennard, Director of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Linton Partington, Founding Director of Linton & Kay Galleries, Bahar Sayed, Curatorial Assistant at AGWA, and Tyrown Waigana, artist and designer.

The 2022 judging panel consisted of Penelope Grist, Curator of Exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, Jessyca Hutchens, Curator at the Berndt Museum, and Colin Walker, Director of The Art Gallery of Western Australia. The judges commented on how heartening it is to see such a range of portraits – diverse in style and approach.

The prize pool available to professional and emerging artists is over $105,000. This includes the Richard Lester Prize for Portraiture of $50,000. This year's winners included:

• • The Richard Lester Prize for Portraiture $50,000 cash | Sophia Alone Respect Grandfather Kutri Makanykarra
• • Tony Fini Foundation Artist Prize $15,000 cash | Greg Creek Diecast‐speech painting (picture of David Sequeira)
• • Minderoo Foundation Spirit Prize $10,000 cash | Sophia Alone Respect Grandfather Kutri Makanykarra
• • Baldock Family People’s Choice Prize $15,000 cash | Sarah Anthony Breathe
• • Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize $5,000 cash | Julia Donney Smoko
• • Highly Commended up to $6,000 value | Mark Chu Here in spirit and Nicholas Hopwood Quest
• • Barton Family Foundation Installers’ Prize $5,000 cash | Adrian Lazzaro Self‐portrait

 For more information please visit lesterprize.com

Image credit: The 2022 Lester Prize Finalist.