Packing room prize winning work. Claus Stangl, Taika Waititi, acrylic on canvas, 245 x 195.1 cm. Archibald Prize Finalist.
Meagan Pelham, Romance is LOVE, watercolour, gouache and acrylic on paper, 111.5 x 78 cm. Archibald Prize Finalist.
Blak Douglas, Moby Dickens, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 300 x 200 cm. Archibald Prize Finalist.
Vincent Namatjira, Self-portrait with dingo, acrylic on linen, 136.5 x 121.5 cm. Archibald Prize Finalist.
Joan Ross, ‘You were my biggest regret’: diary entry 1806, oil and alkyd paint on PVC with printed perspex backing, 154 x 123.5 cm. Archibald Prize Finalist.
Betty Muffler, Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country), pigmented ink and acrylic on linen, 152 x 198 cm. Wynne Prize Finalist.
Sally M Nangala Mulda, Old days at Amoonguna, acrylic on linen, 66 x 122.5 cm. Sulman Prize Finalist.
The 52 finalists for the Archibald Prize, as well as finalists for the Wynne and Sulman Prizes, have been revealed.
Meanwhile Claus Stangl has won the 31st annual Packing Room Prize for his 3D-style portrait of portrait of Academy Award-winning and Emmy-nominated Aotearoa New Zealand writer, director, and actor Taika Waititi.
The Packing Room Prize is awarded by the team at the Art Gallery of New South Wales who unpack and install each Archibald entry. Brett Cuthbertson, head packer, says that Waititi is one of his favourite film makers: “I love his humour and how he sees the world in a way that other people don’t—that twisted, humorous way—and that’s the way Claus has painted the picture; it’s Taika all over.”
Stangl, a Sydney-based artist who was born in England, explains that the 3D-style approach to Waititi’s portrait pays homage to their shared love of cinema: “I wanted to create a portrait that captured Taika’s sense of humour and to execute it in a playful cinematic style, reminiscent of the movies of the seventies and eighties that were popular when he was child.”
The 52 finalists (from 816 entries) for the Archibald Prize range from emerging to established artists across Australia and include:
Mostafa Azimitabar, Natasha Bieniek, Daniel Boyd, Joanna Braithwaite, Keith Burt, Ann Cape, Yvette Coppersmith, Emily Crockford, Jonathan Dalton, Anh Do, Blak Douglas, Yvonne East, Jeremy Eden, David Fenoglio, Hong Fu, Eliza Gosse, Robert Hannaford, Tsering Hannaford, Katherine Hattam, HEGO, Yoshio Honjo, Ksenija Hrnjak, Laura Jones, Solomon Kammer, Jasper Knight, Kim Leutwyler, Richard Lewer, Dapeng Liu, Kathrin Longhurst, Fiona Lowry, Mathew Lynn, Catherine McGuiness, Noel McKenna, Robert Malherbe, Lewis Miller, Vincent Namatjira, Paul Newton, Meagan Pelham, James Powditch, Jude Rae, Jordan Richardson, Thom Roberts, Joan Ross, Wendy Sharpe, Claus Stangl, Nick Stathopoulos, Ross Townsend, Avraham Vofsi, Felix von Dallwitz, Natasha Walsh, Michael Zavros and Caroline Zilinsky.
The 29 finalists of the 2022 Sulman Prize, which is awarded to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project in oil, acrylic, watercolour, or mixed media, are:
Victoria Atkinson, Rat Bedlington, Ash Coates, Will Cooke, Brodie Cullen, Holly Greenwood, Neil Haddon, Amber Hammad, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, Natalya Hughes, Belem Lett, Kim Leutwyler, Noel McKenna, Gigi Malherbe, Danie Mellor, Sally M Nangala Mulda, Vincent Namatjira, Claudia Nicholson, Jason Phu, Rodney Pople, Leslie Rice, Adrian Jangala Robertson, Charles Rose, Wendy Sharpe, Rosie Tarku King, Sophie Victoria, Inawintji Williamson, Christopher Zanko, and Louise Zhang.
And the finalists for the 2022 Wynne Prize, awarded to best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figurative sculpture, include:
Clara Adolphs, Julianne Ross Allcorn, Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler, Betty Chimney and Raylene Walatinna, Hayley Panangka Coulthard, Nellie Coulthard, Dean Cross, Lucy Culliton, Juan Ford, Nicholas Harding, Geoff Harvey, Judith Pungarta Inkamala, Bill Tjampitjinpa Kenda, Juz Kitson, Sam Leach, Noel McKenna, Danie Mellor, Betty Muffler, Dhambit Munuŋgurr, Yukultji Napangati, Angus Nivison, Thea Anamara Perkins, James Powditch, Gordon Pupangamirri with David Tipuamantumirri and Barry Kantilla and Graham Tipungwuti, Alison Puruntatameri, Jude Rae, Gemma Rasdall, Margaret Richards, Sally Scales, Christophe Stibio, Tjapaltjarri, Rhoda Tjitayi, Umoona Senior Women’s Collaborative, and John R Walker.
Winners of the Archibald Prize, along with the Wynne and Sulman Prize, will be announced on Friday 13 May 2022.
The finalists in all three prizes will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from Saturday 14 May to Sunday 28 August 2022. The Archibald Prize finalist works will then tour to Victoria and regional New South Wales until July 2023.
Archibald Prize 2022
Art Gallery of New South Wales
14 May—28 August
Congratulations to Julie Fragar, who has won the 2025 Archibald Prize for Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), her portrait of fellow artist and colleague Justene Williams.
From painting rituals to an obsession with flowers, we caught up with Laura Jones to discuss her process and practice, her current solo show at Jan Murphy Gallery, and what it was like to win the Archibald Prize for her painting of Tim Winton.
Pia Murphy leans into curiosity for her latest exhibition at Nicholas Thompson Gallery. Look What I Found is “referring to that experience in childhood of discovering surprising things in nature.” It’s a methodology Murphy uses in her practice, working with the sole intention of honest discovery.
In their debut solo exhibition Extinguishing Hope, now showing at UTS Gallery, Akil Ahamat uses darkness—both literal and metaphorical—to examine what can be gained when everything is lost.
Existing in the space between ritual, performance and ceremony, the body-centred work of Latai Taumoepeau rewrites the stories that shape our perception of Oceania—while using ancient traditions to tackle our most urgent modern concerns. Taumoepeau is now participating in Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania at Artspace.
The glass sculptures of Dale Chihuly, now on display at Adelaide Botanic Garden, speak to the power and pitfalls of visual pleasure in an increasingly contested world.
