This years judges are artists, Gina Bruce and Ashley Frost.
Gina Bruce is a local contemporary artist who works with a variety of painting and drawing mediums both directly from life and within a studio.
She has been a tutor at the Waverley Woollahra Art School, the National Art School and Art Est Art School, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) in Painting from the National Art School, whilst continuing an art practice for the past 20 years, represented by the Robin Gibson Gallery.
As a recent graduate Gina represented Australia at the Asia Pacific Region Nokia Art Award in Bangkok and, since then, has been a finalist in many state and national prizes such as the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize and the Dobell Prize for Drawing at the Art Gallery of NSW, as well as being awarded the Denise Hickey Memorial Paris Studio Residency by the Art Gallery of NSW.
Gina was awarded Highly Commended in the Portia Geach Portrait Prize as well as the Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW. Her work is held in the Waverley Council collection, as she was the winner of the 2011 Waverley Art Prize.
Ashley Frost is very much a location driven artist with many of his landscape works developed by painting and drawing outdoors. Where sea meets land and night meets day Frost immerses himself in what he describes as a convergence of light and place.
Ashley is a graduate of the National Art School, receiving his BFA with a Distinction in painting. He has travelled widely, conducting research for his PhD candidacy on public art in the cities of Brasilia, Beijing, New York and Canberra.
During his 24 years as an exhibiting artist he has had four solo shows in New York (2000, 2002, 2004 & 2016), a solo show in Austin Texas in 2016 and group exhibitions in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Guangzhou. He has had art residencies in Texas, Antarctica, Norway and Long Island New York.
In Australia, Ashley won the Kings Art Prize in 2004, the Hills Art Prize 2018, the Mosman Art Prize Viewer’s Choice in 2017 and Highly Commended in the 2021 Flow Contemporary Watercolour Prize. He has been a finalist in the Archibald 2017, Wynne 2021 and Sulman 2021 prizes and a number of other art prizes, including the Paddington Art Prize, Adelaide Perry, the NSW Plein Air Prize, the Gallipoli Prize and the Kedumba Drawing Award in 2020.
His works are in collections around Australia including Mosman Art Gallery, Wollongong City Gallery and the University of Wollongong
In addition to his studio practice, Ashley teaches painting and drawing to adults and children from private art schools in Sydney. He currently works from his studio in Sydney and lives on the South Coast of NSW.
