Hornsby Art Prize 2026

• Hornsby Art Prize $10,000
• Hornsby Shire Local Artist Award $5,000
• Sculpture Award $1,500
• Painting Award $1,500
• Drawing Award $1,500
• Printmaking Award $1,500
• Photography Award $1,500
• People’s Choice Award $500

• Limit two (2) entries per person
• Entry fee $40 per entry
• Size limit 2D artworks – 125cm (height, width), including the frame. Size limit 3D artworks – 85cm (height, width, depth)
• Weight limit – 15kg

Guido Maestri

Guido Maestri (b. 1974, Australia) is known for his highly textural, expressive works that foreground materiality, gesture, and observation. Over the course of his career, he has explored en plein air painting, ancient ecosystems, cycles of the natural world, imagined realms, personal memories, and the shifting terrain of his immediate environments to reflect on notions of reality and humanity’s impact on nature.

A graduate of the National Art School, Sydney, Maestri has received numerous awards and residencies. He won the prestigious Archibald Prize in 2009 and has been a nine-time finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. His works are held in major public and private collections including the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra; Artbank, Australia; the Art Gallery of New South Wales; the Art Gallery of South Australia; Parliament House, Canberra; and the Fubon Art Foundation, Taiwan. He is represented by Ames Yuvuz. 

Mirra Whale

Mirra Whale (b. 1979, Australia)is a Sydney based artist who explores everyday 'banal and commonplace' subjects and presents them from another angle. Her artworks explore the formal and conceptual limits of the genre of still life painting. She has been the recipient and finalist of numerous art prizes since graduating from Sydney Art School, Sydney.

Whale is a five-time finalist in the prestigious Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She won the Redland Art Award in 2024, Eutick Memorial Still Life Award (EMSLA) in 2019, Royal Art Society North Sydney Drawing Prize in 2011, National AQ Printmaking Prize in 2003 and the Akky Van Ogtrop Printmaking Award in 2002. She has also been selected as a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize, Portia Geach Portrait Prize, National Still Life Award, Salon des Refuses, Kedumba Drawing Award, Shirley Hannon Portrait Prize, Manning Gallery Prize, Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize, Mortimore Art Prize, Australian Galleries Works on Paper Prize and the AME Bale Art Prize. She is represented by Mitchell Fine Art.