Bowness Photography Prize: call for entries

The 17th annual Bowness Photography Prize has opened for entries. Organised by the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA), the Prize invites artists to submit still photo-based media including analogue and digital photography created over the last year for consideration.

The annual photography competition acts as a survey of contemporary photographic practice, and provides Australian artists with the opportunity to exhibit at one of Australia's leading public galleries. 

With a prizepool of $45,000, there are a number of awards up for grabs. Firstly, the competition's overall winner, the winner of the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, will be awarded the grand sum of $30,000 and their work will be acquired by the MGA.

Secondly, the Smith & Singer People’s Choice Award winner, whose winning work is selected by the public via in-person and online voting, will take home $5,000.

Last year, the award of overall winner went to Melbourne artist Lillian O'Neil for her entry Drawing to a close, which was a large‐format collage of found photographic images, enlarged, cropped and stitched together. 

The third prize to be won is the $10,000 Wai Tang Commissioning Award, which has been introduced in the last year. 

Wai Tang served on MGA’s Committee of Management from 2018 until she passed away in 2020. The Wai Tang Commissioning Award has been established by her husband, Kee Wong, to recognise and honour her significant impact on the arts and preserve her legacy within MGA’s collection and exhibition history.

Paula Mahoney was the first to win the Wai Tang Commissioning Award.

Chosen from the 2021 Bowness Photography Prize for the $10,000 commission by a selection committee, Mahoney's commision will be shown alongside the 2022 Bowness Photography Prize exhibition.

From this year's finalists, MGA’s curatorial team will nominate four artists to be considered for the Wai Tang Commissioning Award, with the winner's work to be exhibited in 2023.

"With all works submitted to the Bowness Photography Prize having been created within the last year, we are anticipating works of incredible depth and poignancy as artists respond, reflect and make work as we emerge from the height of the pandemics lockdowns and restrictions." said MGA Gallery Director Anouska Phizacklea.

Entries are open now and will close on June 29, 2022. To find out more about the prize, visit the website here.