National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024, National Portrait Gallery

Now in its 18th year, the National Photographic Portrait Prize supports and celebrates photographic portraiture in Australia. Each year the prize attracts thousands of entrants from emerging and established artistic talent across the country. Exhibited artworks provide a powerful visual record of the year, reflecting a particular time in Australian culture, both socially and artistically.

This year, 48 finalists have been selected by the panel of judges – writer and broadcaster Benjamin Law, Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery Serena Bentley, and Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Finalists for the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025 are:

Basil Abubaker
Hoda Afshar
Jeff Andersen Jnr.
Luke Austin
T W Baker
Neil Bennett
Paul Blackmore
Tanja Bruckner
Torrey Bruinstroop
Michael Cook
Ryan Dandelion
Gerwyn Davies
ABBIE DAVIS
Shoufay Derz
Yask Desai
George Fetting
Enzo Frisini
Dion Georgopoulos
Natalie Grono
Jennie Groom
Bri Hammond
Jodie Harris
Prue Hazelgrove
The Huxleys

Em Jensen
Ayman Kaake
Luke David Kellett
Nur Aishah Kenton & Anna Jourdant
Sean Kinchela
Tiarni Majid-Loban
Mary-Lou Orliyarli Divilli
Rebecca Polonski
David Prichard
Sherry Quiambao
Marcus Rowsell
Derek Sargent
Matt Sav
Renae Saxby
Raoul Slater
Stuart Spence
Dida Sundet
Kristian Taylor-Wood
Tobias Titz
Hilary Wardhaugh
Georgia Wilde
Emmaline Zanelli
Tom Zust
Laura Zviedre

The winner will receive a prize of $30,000 cash courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery and $20,000 worth of equipment courtesy of Imaging Partner Canon Australia. The Art Handlers’ Award winner will receive $3,000 courtesy of IAS Logistics and the People’s Choice Award winner will receive $10,000 courtesy of the Calvert-Jones Foundation. This year, the Gallery will award a First Time Finalist Award. The winner will receive $3,000 courtesy of EIZO. All finalists receive artist and copyright fees as well as all costs covered for freight and travel.

Finalist works will be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery from 16 August – 12 October 2025, before touring nationally.

Judges

Benjamin Law

Benjamin Law is an Australian writer and broadcaster. He’s the author of The Family Law (2010), Gaysia (2012), the Quarterly Essay Moral Panic 101 (2017) and editor of Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019). Every week, he interviews public figures for the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend magazine. Benjamin is co-executive producer, co-creator and co-writer of the Netflix comedy-drama Wellmania; creator and co-writer of The Family Law (SBS/Hulu/Comedy Central Asia); and playwright of the sold-out Torch the Place (Melbourne Theatre Company). His next play with Melbourne Theatre Company is an adaptation of Cory Taylor’s Dying: A Memoir (October–November 2025). Benjamin has a PhD in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology.

Serena Bentley

Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Serena Bentley has over 20 years’ experience working across the institutional, commercial and non-profit arts sectors in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She has held curatorial positions at ACMI (Melbourne) where she was one of the lead curators on their flagship permanent exhibition The Story of the Moving Image, and at the National Gallery of Victoria where she curated the organisation’s first virtual reality commission, Jess Johnson’s Ixian Gate, along with numerous Australian and international solo and group exhibitions and commissions. Serena has also worked as Artistic Program Manager at artist development organisation Next Wave and in dealer galleries including Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne. From 2022–24 she was Senior Curator at Tauranga Art Gallery in Tauranga Moana, Aotearoa.

Leigh Robb

Leigh Robb is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia and has 25-years’ experience working in the arts. Her career spans roles at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Thomas Dane Gallery in London, and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Leigh has curated over 50 exhibitions including Radical Textiles (with Rebecca Evans); James Tylor: Turrangka … in the shadows; 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres; Chiharu Shiota: Absence Embodied, and Versus Rodin: bodies across space and time. With a reputation for commissioning significant contemporary projects, Leigh is interested in challenging curatorial models and creating transformative experiences for artists and audiences.