Visual artist and documentary maker Hoda Afshar’s Untitled #01 (from the series Code Black/Riot) (2024) has just been announced as the 2025 National Photographic Portrait Prize winner. Afshar takes home $30,000 cash and $20,000 worth of equipment courtesy of Imaging Partner Canon Australia.
This is not Afshar’s first recognition by the prize, winning with Portrait of Ali (2014) in 2015. Speaking on her second win, Afshar says: “I had not intended to enter the prize again–and I certainly never expected to win it… As a photographer, I am always seeking to disrupt such ways of seeing, and this is why I chose to submit this portrait for the Prize. For me, these girls’ gesture symbolises an act of resistance both against authority and towards the camera – a refusal to be, or to be seen, as passive. We need to see differently if things are going to change.
The image is part of a larger project titled Code Black/Riot. “Code Black” is the emergency code used in youth detention to indicate a riot. I’ve been developing this project in far North Queensland since November last year in collaboration with the Indigenous artist, Vernon Ah Kee, and my old friend and collaborator, Behrouz Boochani, with the support of Change the Record in Sydney and Youth Empowered Towards Independence (YETI) in Cairns. The project is made up of several components and is an interrogation of a system that targets and incarcerates children as young as ten years old, like the three girls in this portrait.”
The judges, Benjamin Law (writer and broadcaster), Serena Bentley (Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery) and Leigh Robb (Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia) have said: “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.”
The First Time Finalist Award (formerly the Highly Commended Prize) valued at $3,000 courtesy of EIZO, has been awarded to Australian-Filipino multidisciplinary artist Sherry Quiambao. Her work, Dreams on a stone (2024), is a portrait of her mother, with Quiambao saying: “Wrapped in a golden emergency blanket and resting on a tumbled stone, my mother represents strength and adaptability, finding hope through her migration story. The golden blanket, a symbol of safety and care, contrasts with the grounding presence of the stone. Together, they reflect the tension between aspiration, humility, fragility and resilience.”
Earlier in the week, the Portrait Gallery announced visual artist and photographer George Fetting as the winner of the Art Handlers’ Award for his portrait Antonio Intili – Sartoria (Tailor Shop) #1 2024, receiving a $3,000 cash prize courtesy of IAS Fine Art Logistics.
With the People’s Choice Award still to be announced in October, this recipient will receive $10,000 cash courtesy of the Calvert-Jones Foundation.
Finalists’ works will be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra from 16 August—12 October, 2025 before touring nationally.
The National Portrait Prize 2025
National Portrait Gallery
Canberra/Ngambri
Until 12 October
Suggested Reading
The regenerative power of spring
Spring1883, Melbourne’s interactive and immersive fair returns, celebrating the collision of contemporary art installed amongst 18th century decor of The Hotel Windsor.
Anna Carlsson
Let’s Play
Gabriela Burkhalter’s The Playground Project at Incinerator Gallery reinvents the typically serious installation space, inviting children to play, reminding us of its importance within the arts.
Briony Downes
Lisa Radford’s Circular Logic
A new exhibition by Melbourne painter Lisa Radford is animated by a deep interest in the way ideas circulate—and the connections between people that unfold over time.
Amelia Winata
Monica Rani Rudhar on (be)longing
Step inside Monica Rani Rudhar’s space at Parramatta Artists Studios, where she works across ceramics, sculpture, video, performance, and latterly, public art. Rudhar is working towards her solo exhibition at Martin Browne Contemporary, while reflecting on the value of play, how imitation leads to authenticity, and why she’d be lost without her sketchbook.
Jo Higgins
Written in the stars
A major exhibition charts the ingenuity and creative spirit coming out of the Yirrkala community across time. In collaboration with Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre,Yolŋu Power: the art of Yirrkala is now showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Tyson Frigo
The kimono is more than an artefact and more than clothing. It is a concept artists will make their own
Over 70 fabulous garments of exquisite craftsmanship – some made of silk with gold and silver embroidery and dazzling designs – have been assembled within a context of over 150 paintings, posters, wood block prints, magazines and decorative arts. Although many of the items have never been previously exhibited in Australia, most are now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, with many specifically acquired for this exhibition.