Congratulations to Gene A’Hern, winner of the Sir John Sulman Prize 2025 and $40,000 for his work Sky painting, a bold, vibrant and gestural work that draws on his relationship to the Blue Mountains where he lives and works.
Sulman Prize 2025 winner Gene A’hern and guest judge Elizabeth Pulie with winning work ‘Sky painting’ at the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025 winners announcement, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Artwork © the artist. Photograph: © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio
Speaking of his win, A’Hern said: “Painted with expansive movements to capture a sense of scale and colour, this painting unfolded as I immersed myself in skywatching, while reflecting on the ceremonial choreography of the surrounding environment. It conveys a sensation of nature’s gestures, composed to resonate from within, translating an omnipresence that comes from dust and returns to dust.
“The work draws on charged memories – birds singing in harmony, branches sighing in the wind, the closing curtain of the setting sun, all forming a living landscape that I breathe with and through. For me, the sky and the Blue Mountains intertwine and reveal themselves as a place of origin, deep memory and belonging.”
Winner Sulman Prize 2025: Gene A’Hern ‘Sky painting’, oil and oil stick on board, 240 x 240cm. © the artist. Photograph: © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio
The Sir John Sulman Prize is awarded to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist and is judged by a guest artist each year. This year’s Sulman Prize judge is Sydney artist Elizabeth Pulie, who selected A’Hern’s winning work from a record 732 entries for the Sulman in 2025.
“Gene A’Hern’s work is an unselfconscious dedication to line and colour – its almost excessive celebration of the materiality of paint manifesting a certain energy that repeatedly attracted my attention throughout the judging process,” said Pulie.
All finalists in Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025 are on view at the Art Gallery of NSW from 10 May to 17 August 2025.
artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/archibald-wynne-and-sulman-prizes-2025
