^{Cover Image: Sherry Quiambao, Delicacy Measures, 2025. Featured artwork from the 2025 Invitation Art Prize.}  

This year’s prize brings together ten established WA artists, each presenting specially commissioned works that will compete for the $25,000 prize. 

From 16 October to 13 December, visitors will be among the very first to experience both the City’s new gallery space and these specially commissioned works. 

The exhibition will feature diverse mediums from painting and sculpture to video, installation, and interactive art. The shortlisted artists and their new works include: 

• Tom Blake’s ‘leaves in a stream’ create site-responsive installations that uncover hidden gestures and transform ordinary fragments into meditations on time, connection and community. 

• In ‘Chance Encounter’ Sam Bloor reimagines ordinary city spaces as playful points of connection, encouraging strangers to share anonymous phone conversations and reflect on the social value of art. 

• Bruno Booth examines the complex relationship between identity and labelling in ‘We’re all alone in this together’, drawing from personal experiences of disability to create thought-provoking commentary on societal perceptions. 

• In a body of works including ‘The End & The Beginning’ Erin Coates presents intricate sculptural works that look to family histories and animal encounters to explore fragility, healing and ecological memory. 

• Sarah Elson’s deeply personal ‘Vale’ transforms fallen Marri tree nuts into precious metal castings, creating a protective veil that speaks to grief, resilience, and our delicate relationship with nature. 

• Celebrating joy and canine companionship, ‘Off Lead’ is Tim Meakin’s display of hand-engraved aluminium dogs that shimmer and dance – a self-professed ‘zoomie in the park’ that captures the exhilaration of community and connection. 

• Sherry Quiambao explores cultural identity and consumerism through carefully constructed still life photographs and the mesmerising video work of ‘Affluence Breathes a Heavy Air’. 

• In drypoint prints made from discarded garage shelving, Andy Quilty revisits his signature chair motifs, transforming overlooked materials into quiet meditations on suburban existence and collective indifference in his series of works. 

• Anna Louise Richardson’s ‘Extracts’ presents five striking charcoal drawings of introduced flowering plants that flourish in disturbed soils on the fringes of Joondalup and across Perth, evoking a sense of ongoing loss. 

• In ‘The Great Australian Anxiety’, Tyrown Waigana transforms the small, shared drama of bin day into art. His three humanoid bin sculptures embody the awkwardness of peeking at neighbours. 

Since the prize was launched in 1998, it has supported over 700 high-calibre artists working across different practices, career stages and lived experiences. The winning artwork which is acquired into the City of Joondalup’s Art Collection becomes a significant addition to the collection’s character and identity.   

In 2025, Invitation Art Prize increased its investment in artists, providing an artist fee to create a larger body of work, a longer production time, and gallery standards for the presentation of the final work.  

The new program attracted a competitive pool of 142 entries, which were reviewed by an independent selection panel including Abdul Abdullah, Australian multi-disciplinary artist; Carly Lane, Curator Indigenous Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia; and Katherine Wilkinson, Program Director, Fremantle Biennale. 

The 2025 Invitation Art Prize winner will be announced on Saturday 11 October. The winning piece will be acquired into the City of Joondalup’s permanent collection, and all other exhibiting works will be available for purchase. 

The free exhibition will be open to the general public from Thursday 16 October, with the Joondalup Contemporary Art Gallery open from 10:00am to 4:00pm every Thursday to Saturday. 

Find out more at joondalup.wa.gov.au/iap or to stay up to date with the City’s arts programming and opportunities, sign up for the monthly Arts in focus eNewsletter here.