LATEST
SHORTLISTED - SIDNEY NOLAN ART PRIZE - SIDNEY NOLAN TRUST THE RODD UK
I’m honoured to announce that I have been shortlisted for the prestigious Sidney Nolan Art Prize at the Sidney Nolan Trust (UK). My work, Tongue against the Cactus, was selected by an esteemed panel of international judges and will travel to the United Kingdom ahead of the prize winner announcements scheduled for July/August 2026.
Inspired by the legacy of pioneering Australian modernist Sir Sidney Nolan (1917–1992), the Sidney Nolan Art Prize invites artists to explore emotion and human identity in relation to society, landscape, and the natural world. The award celebrates Nolan’s enduring influence and his commitment to art as a means of engaging with urgent and contemporary questions of human experience.
The judging panel brings together leading curatorial, critical, and design voices from across international institutions and practices, underscoring the global significance of the prize.
My shortlisted work will be exhibited alongside forty international finalists at The Rodd, Nolan’s former 17th-century home in rural Herefordshire, as part of a major exhibition in Summer 2026. The prize includes a £1000 award, a solo exhibition opportunity, artist residencies, and professional mentoring.
ABOUT MY WORK
”Just as the the moon needs the sun to reflect light, I need the moon to cast my shadow."… Louisa Chircop
As I create, sculpt, construct, paint, draw, print, collage or experiment in mixed media, I think of my work and process as a crystal ball conversation about life and the human condition. The unearthing of experiences, the sifting of my psyche and my emotional response to the world around me exposes a multilayered and multifaceted way of seeing and feeling, a process of realisation.
Anything can inspire me, as I work from a variety of sources conjuring portraits, landscapes or objects working in diverse mediums and approaches that intersect with art history and culture. I delve into the unknown, into memories and lived experiences in search of a more poetic understanding of the universe. My adventure, a magical mystery tour, where my angels and demons converse on topics regarding the physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological structure of things as well as life’s full spectrum of tenses, past, present and future.
This is how approach my every day and every artwork. Some days I love it, some days I want to strangle it, kick it before it kicks me. Some days it beats me up and pummels my insides to a pulp. But I choose to carry on, I survive, I let it flow, those fragments and elements of material forming connective sinews to my thorny soul. I make art so it teaches me about my place in the world, what I am and where I am going. In turn, I wish to lure others closer to this experience of my crystal ball wonder.
Using my subconscious to discover my subterranean voice, I hone and master connections between personal and universal, life and existential themes. The resulting works, often a surreal reflection of my inner being, can appear as hybrids of shifting parts, or psychic montages and troves of ambiguity and enigma, making visible the intimate and elusive qualities of the shape of my thinking, to give form to our fragile ever-changing world.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
I am honoured to have been invited to take part in the PLC Artist in Residence program. The annual Artist-in-Residence program connects Visual Arts at PLC Sydney with industry practitioners. To date, the College has welcomed some of Australia's most respected contemporary artists on the Year 11 Visual Arts Camp at Bundanon; each inspirational in sharing their art practice and approaches to depicting the Australian landscape. Video by Hugh Clark. Read more >
PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR
I'm thrilled to have been approached by Foxtel Arts to feature in their launch campaign alongside two other respected Australian portrait artists for 'Portrait Artist Of The Year - Season 4 Launch'. Don't miss the series beginning on Tuesday 14 August 2018 on Foxtel Arts or stream On Demand.
