Finalists announced for 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award

Wangaratta Art Gallery has announced the ten finalists for the 2025 Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award, a $40,000 acquisitive prize that celebrates innovation and excellence in textile art across Australia.

Established to honour Wangaratta’s proud history of textile manufacturing and craft, the biennial award has become a vital platform for contemporary artists working with fibre-based media. Now in its ninth iteration, and supported by the Kyamba Foundation, the award is “the richest textile prize in Australia,” and continues to highlight the textile medium as a critical force in contemporary art practice.

This year’s finalists were selected from over 430 entries Australia-wide and include: Helvi Apted (VIC), Elisa Jane Carmichael (QLD), Hannah Cooper (NSW), Charlotte Haywood (NSW), Cara Johnson (VIC), Charles Levi (NSW), Emily Simek (VIC), Jacqueline Stojanovic (VIC), Sera Waters (SA), and Jemima Wyman (NSW/USA).

According to Wangaratta Art Gallery Director Rachel Arndt, “The award attracts a calibre of artists that are leading contemporary dialogue and practice both within the textile medium and across disciplines. Since inception, Wangaratta Art Gallery’s textile focus has been, and continues to be, demonstrated through programming and acquisition. The award is intrinsically embedded within this direction yet with more expansive aims – to recognise the textile medium as fundamentally situated within contemporary visual arts practice and to elevate textiles on a national scale.”

The 2025 judging panel included 2023 award winner Sepideh Farzam, Ararat Gallery TAMA’s Katy Mitchell, and Arndt herself. The winner will be selected by guest judge Blair French, CEO of Murray Art Museum Albury, and announced at the opening on Saturday 24 May 2025.

The exhibition runs from 24 May to 17 August 2025 at Wangaratta Art Gallery. For details, visit their website.