2025 National Photographic Portrait Prize

Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope

2025 National Photographic Portrait Prize | Various Artists

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra | 16 August – 12 October 2025

Then touring nationally - Cairns, Mount Gambier, Geraldton & Horsham | between 6 December 2025 & 26 January 2027

Now in its 18th year, the National Photographic Portrait Prize supports and celebrates photographic portraiture in Australia. There are many great works in this exhibition of finalists, only some of which I will discuss here.

The winner for 2025 is Untitled #01 (from the series Code Black/Riot) 2024 by Hoda Afshar, a Naarm/Melbourne-based visual artist whose practice focuses on the intricate relationships between politics and aesthetics, knowledge and representation, visibility and violence. All participants in the series were invited to use a means of their own choosing to conceal their identities while making a personal statement. The three First Nations youngsters in this image chose to conceal their faces to avoid being identified by the youth justice system.

Untitled #01 (from the series Code Black/Riot) 2024 © Hoda Afshar

 

When we viewed the exhibition, both my companion and I observed that there were numerous images of (and by) members of the LGBTQIA+ and Indigenous Australian communities. Amongst them is Hilary Wardhaugh’s Zev and Nick, 2025, their relationship revealed partly by the image and also by the accompanying artist statement. Mary-Lou Orliyarli Divilli’s Langi, 2024, is a portrait of her niece Violet, which “personifies the pride that goes with belonging, skills, knowing about your heritage and living within your culture.” Gerwyn Davies is a queer artist who works across photography, textile, and costume. He takes a “performative approach to photographic portraiture, exploring self-representation, camp aesthetics and kitsch Australiana.” His Bather, 2024, is a delightful example of that.

Zev and Nick, 2025 © Hilary Wardhaugh

Langi, 2024 © Mary-Lou Orliyarli Divilli

 

Bather, 2024 © Gerwyn Davies

T W Baker’s image Waiting on the Wet, 2024 has an interesting back story. It was taken in between massive afternoon downpours. A roll of Italian, medium-format cinema film jammed in Baker’s camera, but he managed to salvage and store it in a light-tight pouch away from the brutal sun and humidity. Two days later that pouch was opened by a curious member of the Darwin Airport security team. A week later, after processing the film in Sydney, it appeared that the harsh Top End of Australia had left its mark.

Waiting on the wet, 2024 © T W Baker

Jennie Groom’s Lola in utero, 2024 is a very different image of pregnancy. Indeed, a most unusual portrait. It is both clever and effective, a fine monochrome study.

Lola in utero, 2024 © Jennie Groom

 

Laura Zviedre’s Hands, 2024 is a delightful portrayal of a child - one of his hands holding his parents’ hands whilst his other one rests on his mother’s growing belly. It is all about love.

Hands, 2024 © Laura Zviedre

Back in 1995, Raoul Slater and his father Peter produced a lavishly illustrated book, Photographing Australia's Birds. More recently, he has been working in the medium of wet plate collodion, the pre-eminent photographic technology of the 1860s. His selected finalist work Muni, 2024 is a fine example of that medium.

Muni, 2024 - Raoul Slater

There are two other artworks that I found myself studying for lengthy periods of time. Michael Cook’s Individuation – Persona 2024 and Dida Sundet’s Philomela 2024. Cook’s works interrogate the legacy of colonisation and invite viewers to experience roles in reversal and histories re-written. This particular artwork ponders his life and that of his friend and artistic collaborator, Joey Gala. It recreates a scene from Greco-Roman mythology that depicts rape and is my favourite work in the exhibition. Through feminist intervention, it “alters perspective and challenges established gendered tropes.” Again, there is so much to see – movement in the woman’s arms, cyanotypes in the fabric, a toy held by a hand under the food-laden structure, and much more.

Individuation - Persona, 2024 © Michael Cook

Philomela, 2024 © Dida Sundet

Overall, this is a splendid exhibition, perhaps the best selection of finalists yet in this annual major Prize. Whilst we do not know what other works were amongst the thousands not selected (except for our own if we entered), the judges are to be commended for their 48 choices – all of which can be seen online here.

A longer review is available on the author's blog here and in the December 25 issue of The Printer (pp 16-22) here.

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If only we could take the time: contemporary Australian photography

Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope

If only we could take the time: contemporary Australian photography

Ying Ang, Katrin Koenning and Anu Kumar

National Portrait Gallery I 30 November 2024 – 1 June 2025 

This show is being staged alongside the major exhibition Carol Jerrems: Portraits. The National Portrait Gallery (NPG)’s website says that it spotlights the work of three contemporary Australian artists whose work sits in dialogue with Jerrems’ legacy.

The exhibition title is taken from Jerrems’ preface to her 1974 publication, A book about Australian women. ‘There is so much beauty around us if only we could take the time to open our eyes and perceive it. And then share it.’ The NPG correctly suggests that contemporary Australian photography considers how the impulse to observe, to record and to share continues to propel photographic practice in Australia.

The images by each artist have been arranged in groups and each arrangement is an artwork in itself contributing to the narrative. There is also a display case containing three books – one by each artist – adding further to the overall experience.

Ying Ang is an acclaimed photographer and author with an extensive exhibition history. Like Jerrems she also produces photobooks. Her 2021 self-published illustrated book The Quickening: a memoir on matrescence is being exhibited here – both on the walls and in the display case.

Installation view featuring The Quickening, 2022 by Ying Ang

The term matrescence refers to the life-changing experiences of new mothers. These artworks chronicle pregnancy and the first months of motherhood which follow. In order to portray the transition into motherhood, eerie images taken on baby monitors are contrasted with gentle photographic studies that capture emotions of joy and tenderness as well as anxiety, depression, and claustrophobia. On the reverse side of the large panel where the works are installed is a considerable volume of excellent text which should not be missed.

Sample of the text on reverse side of Ying Ang’s installation The Quickening, 2022

The Quickening, 2022 (detail) Ying Ang. Courtesy of the artist. © Ying Ang

The Quickening, 2022 (detail) Ying Ang. Courtesy of the artist. © Ying Ang

Katren Koenning is an artist who carefully considers colours, textures, and tones. She also produces photobooks as well as exhibiting. She groups images, using works possibly created decades apart to reveal a portrait of family, friends and kinship. In her exhibit titled where will the story take us, 2002-24, we see a tattered book and its shadow on a dusty surface, a cat at a window, people, and more. A trawl through her Instagram account reveals the diversity of her imagery and her passionate approach. The individual pieces in this installation do not disappoint. Her illustrated 2024 book between the skin and the sea is in the previously mentioned display case.

Installation view featuring where will the story take us, 2002-2024 (printed 2024) by Katren Koenning

where will the story take us, 2002-2024 (printed 2024) (detail) Katrin Koenning. Courtesy of the artist. © Katrin Koenning

where will the story take us, 2002-2024 (printed 2024) (detail) Katrin Koenning. Courtesy of the artist. © Katrin Koenning 

I met the third artist, Anu Kumar, at the exhibition launch party whilst exploring her Untitled images. I had asked another viewer of the artworks if he knew where a named place, Ghaziabad, was in India. He said it could be described as an outer suburb of New Delhi. Then he introduced me to his cousin – the artist. She told me Ghaziabad definitely wasn’t a place that tourists would want to visit.

And yes, like Jerrems, Ang and Koenning, Kumar also produces photobooks as well as exhibiting. Some of the works here are from two of her books – Ghar (meaning home in Hindi) which is displayed features images from her birthplace - Ghaziabad, and After the Havan (a prayer ritual). We see an excellent visual articulation of her exploration of family and place that she had left when just one year old. There are images of everyday objects and people - including an aged, framed photo in an unused sink and the worn feet of (probably) a family member. The totality of the displayed work is very much a portrait.

 

Installation view featuring Untitled, 2024 (detail) by Anu Kumar

Untitled, 2024 (detail) Anu Kumar. Courtesy of the artist. © Anu Kumar

Untitled, 2024 (detail) Anu Kumar. Courtesy of the artist. © Anu Kumar 

So have these three photographers taken the time to see the beauty around them? I certainly saw beauty in their varied imagery. Have they chronicled intimate relationships and used their cameras to connect us emotionally with the things they experienced? I believe they have, but emotional responses must be your own.

This review is also available on the author's blog here. It has also been published on pp 12-15 of the February 2025 issue of The Printer here.