Acknowledgement of Country

Dharug

Bayadyinyang budyari Dharug yiyura Dharug Ngurra.
Bayady’u budyari Dharug Warunggadgu baranyiin barribugu.
Bayady’u budyari wagulgu yiyuragu Ngurra bimalgu Blacktown City. Flannel flowers dyurali bulbuwul.
Yanmannyang mudayi Dharug Ngurrawa. Walama ngyini budbud dali Dharug Ngurra Dharug yiyura baranyiin barribugu.

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English

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this Land, the Dharug people, and their continued connection to Country.
We pay our respects to Elders from yesterday to tomorrow.
We extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of Blacktown City where the flannel flowers still grow proud and strong.
We will walk softly on this land and open our hearts to Country as the Dharug people have for tens of thousands of years.

Join us for an afternoon tea with artists Louise Zhang, Jess Bradford and HOSSEI this Saturday 27 July from 1pm to 3pm! Register here
2024 Blacktown City Art Prize and Young Artist Prize

This event has ended. 

The Blacktown City Art Prize exhibition is back for 2024!

For the first time Blacktown City and the wider western Sydney community is embedded from the outset, with special consideration given to artworks that celebrated, expressed and reflected upon the diverse history, environment and First Nations stories of the area.

81 finalists have been chosen from western Sydney and across Australia. Winners have been announced for the Blacktown City Art Prize Main Prize, First Nations Artist Prize, Local Artist Prize, Early-Career Artist Prize (new in 2024!), and the People’s Choice Prize.

All artworks in the exhibition will be available for purchase at The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre.

The 2024 Blacktown City Art Prize exhibition is curated by Talia Smith, with associate curator Adele Walsh.

Meet the judges

We are thrilled to announce the judges for the 2024 Blacktown City Art Prize

Amani Haydar is an award-winning author, visual artist, and advocate for women’s health and safety based in Western Sydney. Amani’s ground-breaking feminist memoir The Mother Wound (Pan Macmillan) explores the effects of abuse and state violence on women and has received several awards including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. In recognition of her advocacy against domestic violence, Amani was also awarded the UTS Faculty of Law Alumni Award in 2021 and Local Woman of the Year for Bankstown in 2020. Amani regularly consults with domestic violence organisations on improving access and outcomes for victim-survivors. As an active visual artist and former Archibald Prize Finalist, Amani also collaborates with organisations like SSI and the Older Women’s Network to facilitate visual arts workshops in Western Sydney, with a focus on self-empowerment through storytelling. Amani’s writing and illustrations have been published in various books and anthologies including Admissions (Upswell), The Very Best Doughnut (Pan Macmillan), and Safar: Muslim Women’s Stories of Travel and Transformation (Hardie Grant).

Luke Létourneau is a curator and arts manager, and is currently employed as Curatorial and Collections Lead at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre. Luke has experience commissioning and developing new works across multiple artforms, programming for Western Sydney audiences, and developing curatorial projects through engagement with creative and cultural groups in south-west Sydney. Recent projects include ‘Adaptation’ (2020), ‘Looking at Gold’ (2022) and ‘Jamming with strangers’ (2022) which was the winner Exhibition Projects [Large Organisations] at the IMAGinE Awards 2022. Luke also regularly contributes writing to national arts publications and artist catalogues.

Venessa Possum is a Dharug Dharawal custodian acknowledging connections to Gungungurra Peoples. She lives at Burraburra in the Blue Mountains and is the CEO at Blue Mountains Culture and Resource Centre. She also leads an active life as an artist, collaborator, producer, educator, archivist and cultural consultant. She holds a 1st class Honours in Fine Art and Contemporary Indigenous Art and is a candidate in a Doctor of Philosophy in Griffith University. Her located research reveals a diverse oeuvre of visual languages – experienced as dynamic, material installations combining language, painting, drawing, collage, rubbings, printing and documentary photography and video. She is deeply engaged in producing an archive of Aboriginal presences coexisting with the colonial trove.

2024 Young Artist Prize

Creating Cooler Cities
Be inspired by ‘cool’ artworks created by Blacktown rising stars at the 2024 Young Artist Prize exhibition!
The 2024 Young Artist Prize invites children and young people to create an artwork that reflects the theme ‘Creating Cooler Cities,’ in response to rising temperatures in our cities.
The exhibition sees 87 finalists from across Blacktown City in the running for prizes across 5 brand-new categories:

  1. Best interpretation of ‘cooler’ city
  2. Most expressive use of colour
  3. Most creative use of sustainable materials
  4. Best green environment
  5. Best expression of Blacktown City

Awards and prize-giving
Winners will be announced on Saturday 20 January 2024 as part of Hive Festival, a multi-day festival for children and families in partnership with Art Gallery of New South Wales, and presented as part of Sydney Festival 2024.

Prize-giving Ceremony:
Saturday 20 January 2024
Presented as part of Hive Festival, a multi-day festival for children and families as part of Sydney Festival, in partnership with Art Gallery of New South Wales.

This project is presented by Blacktown Arts and supported by Blacktown City Council and the NSW Government through Create NSW.

The Blacktown City Art Prize is proudly sponsored by Ford Land Company, Wespoint and Workers Lifestyle Group.

The Young Artist Prize is proudly sponsored by Blacktown City Council’s Environment Section and Kids Early Learning with support from Blacktown City Libraries.

Image Credits:

The Great Barrier Reef, 2022 by Lauren Johnson. Photography by silversalt Photography
Amani Haydar, courtesy of the artist
Luke Létourneau, courtesy of the artist
Venessa Possum, courtesy of the artist

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