Andrew Tomkins wins 2025 Gallipoli Art Prize

Sydney artist Andrew Tomkins has won the 2025 Gallipoli Art Prize for the second time, taking home the $20,000 acquisitive award for his striking mixed media work HMAS Karangi. Awarded annually by the Gallipoli Memorial Club, the prize invites artists to reflect on the enduring values of loyalty, respect, love of country, courage and comradeship as embodied in the spirit of the Gallipoli Campaign.

Tomkins’ winning piece captures the haunting remains of the HMAS Karangi, a WWII boom defence vessel now resting quietly in Sydney’s Homebush Bay. Once a defender of Darwin Harbour during the Japanese bombing of 1942, the vessel later supported nuclear testing in the Montebello Islands before being decommissioned. Today, its rusted hull has been reclaimed by nature, transformed into a sanctuary for endangered mangroves and thriving wetlands.

“. . . HMAS Karangi is a memorial to the personnel who sailed her. I have utilised her reality to create a graphic picture of a more peaceful world . . .” Tomkins said of the work, which is rendered using his unique method of drawing and painting on translucent polyester, then cutting and layering the surface in a process influenced by socialist woodcuts and stencil street art.

The judging panel – Jane Watters, Barry Pearce, Elizabeth Fortescue, and John Robertson – commended Tomkins’ thoughtful tribute to the themes of memory, transformation and peace in turbulent times.

Highly commended was Lighthorse Section by Wayne Davis, a dynamic oil painting celebrating the trust and unity between riders and horses in the Australian Light Horse Regiment.

The 2025 Gallipoli Art Prize exhibition runs from 17 April to 11 May at 6-8 Atherden Street, The Rocks, Sydney. View all finalist works at gallipoliartprize.org.au.