Selected from forty-nine finalists, the 2026 Bayside Painting Prize winner is Melbourne-based David Egan. Egan won the $25,000 non-acquisitive Major Prize for Decreation machine, a work that engages with canons of art history, in this case Antonello da Messina’s Renaissance painting Pieta, c.1476; through the artist’s own personal painterly language and iconography, the capacity of painting to continuously reinvent itself is revealed.
David Egan, Decreation machine, 2025, oil on canvas, 167.5 × 122cm / Winner of the 2026 Bayside Painting Prize / Courtesy the artist and Bayside Painting Prize
Betra Fraval won the $10,000 acquisitive Beckett Local Prize – the finalists’ exhibition on show at Bayside Gallery until 14 June 2026.
