The National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024 has highlighted the artistic prowess of both established and emerging talents from across Australia. Featuring works from 34 finalists, the exhibition offers a powerful visual snapshot of the year, encapsulating significant social and artistic elements of Australian culture.
The top honor for 2024 was awarded to “Alexis with moon, 2024” by Amos Gebhardt.
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Amos Gebhardt wins National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024
“This image is from a larger series featuring visionary thinkers who I love & respect. Alexis is an author of startling imagination who writes the shape of future cosmologies in these dystopian times. I photographed Alexis under moonlight as a way to draw on the moon as a symbol of illumination and dream. Two seers in the dark,” Amos Gebhardt posted on Instagram.
The diptych masterfully integrates the moon, the subject, and the camera, creating a compelling interplay that captivated the judges.
The judges, Isobel Parker Philip (Portrait Gallery Director, Curatorial and Collection), José de Silva (Director of Sydney’s UNSW Galleries, and curator of the 18th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art), and Pippa Milne (Curator PHOTO Australia), praised the winning piece for its sparse yet powerful composition.
“Alexis Wright is a noted First Nations storyteller whose work collapses linear time and connects to ideas of the cosmos, and Gebhardt’s portrait, lit only by the moon, speaks directly to the sitter’s work. Created through a long exposure, the pair of photographs turn Wright and the moon into echoed forms. Instead of a singular snapshot in time, what is represented is an extended moment; the moon traces its passage in the sky and Wright’s eyes flicker, reflecting light back to us. The intentionality of the work’s presentation, opening like the pages of a book, can only truly be appreciated in-situ.”
Gebhardt’s winning piece earns them a $30,000 cash prize and Canon equipment valued at $20,000, courtesy of the Gallery’s Imaging Partner, Canon Australia.
Additionally, the People’s Choice Award will bestow $10,000 cash, courtesy of the Calvert-Jones Foundation, along with a prize pack from EIZO, to the artist who garners the most votes from the public.
This year, the Art Handlers’ award went to Shelley Xue’s “阿谊 (ah Yi) 2024,” earning a $2,000 cash prize from exhibition partner IAS Fine Art Logistics.
Amos Gebhardt, artist bio
Amos Gebhardt, born in Adelaide, initially pursued studies in law and screen production at Flinders University. They later completed a master’s degree in direction at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. Gebhardt has since forged a distinguished career in film and television, earning multiple awards for their work.
Gebhardt, a recipient of the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship (2014) and a Master’s graduate from AFTRS, has exhibited work at prestigious venues such as M+ Museum in Hong Kong, ACMI in Melbourne, MONA in Hobart, and the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne.
Their work has also been screened on SBS and ABC. Notably, Gebhardt created visuals for Kate Miller-Heidke’s 2016 Helpmann Award-winning concert with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at MOFO. In the film industry, Gebhardt directed Second Unit on Justin Kurzel’s “Macbeth” (2015), starring Marion Cotillard, which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 2019, Gebhardt was awarded the inaugural Adelaide Studios Artist Residency, a collaboration between the South Australian Film Corporation, Adelaide Studios, SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Festival, and the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art.
“Night Horse” (2019) continues the exploration of themes present in Amos Gebhardt’s recent video installations “Lovers” (2018) and “Evanescence” (2018), both of which were selected for the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, as well as “There Are No Others” (2016) presented at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne.
These works delve into concepts of nakedness as the barest form of identity, and the deep time cycles of life, death, and decay.
In 2021, Gebhardt’s major exhibition “Spooky Action (at a distance)” was showcased at The Substation as part of PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography, highlighting four years of the artist’s practice. Gebhardt is currently represented by Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne.
Amos Gebhardt, by now established in the art world, won the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize in 2022 and was a finalist in both the National Photography Prize, MAMA, and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, HOTA, in the same year.
Their solo exhibitions have been featured at prominent venues such as Tolarno Galleries and Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, the Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide, and the Sydney Contemporary international art fair. Amos is represented by Tolarno Galleries.
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