Who Is Hadley's Art Prize Winner Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan?

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The AU $100,000 Hadley’s Art Prize, Australia’s largest annual acquisitive prize for landscape painting, has been awarded to Vicki Yatjiki Cullinan.

Cullinan, an Indigenous artist and community leader from Yankunytjatjara Country in South Australia, won with her red dot painting Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) (2023).

‘I paint my Country, the beautiful and powerful Yankunytjatjara Country that I live on and that will always be a part of me,’ Cullinan said.

Cullinan, who now mentors artists as director and cultural liaison officer at Indigenous-owned art centre Iwantja Arts, has created art, including paintings, drawings, and prints for two decades. Her work draws inspiration from Tjukurpa, which are ancestral stories.

In a statement, the prize’s judges said, ‘Cullinan’s work knocked us out at first glance and just kept giving.’

‘The work does not reveal all its secrets at once. Like the Country, it is vibrant and alive,’ they noted.

Cullinan’s work was chosen from 30 finalists.

Melissa Kenihan, received the AU $10,000 residency award for her oil painting This is not a Rehearsal (2022), a work with a ‘potent environmental message’, according to the judges.

Honourable mentions were also given to Joan Ross who won the inaugural Blue World Prize for Ocean Advocacy earlier this year; Melbourne-based painter Melissa Kenihan; and painter of Hobart skyscapes, Joshua Andree, among others.

The Hadley’s Art Prize Finalists Exhibition continues through 20 August at Hadley’s Orient Hotel in Hobart. —[O]

Main image: Yatjiki Cullinan, winner of the Hadley Prize 2023. Courtesy Iwantja Arts, South Australia.