The inaugural National Teacher-Artist Prize 2021 Finalist Exhibition was held at The Lennox Gallery in Richmond, Victoria.

The first of its kind, the Prize assesses 2D and 3D artworks by Australian primary and secondary school educators, with the goal of encouraging, recognising and celebrating visual arts in Australian education. This year’s exhibition showcased 50 shortlisted artworks that were selected from 760 submissions from around the country.

Zart believes that supporting the professional growth of art teachers can enrich the learning environments as a whole, making art education the best it can be. The Prize is an attempt to reward the hard work and boundless talent that goes into art education in Australia.
This year’s guest judges included two esteemed figures from the art world. Del Kathryn Barton is an acclaimed Australian artist with works appearing around the world, from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney to the Tiroche deLeon Collection in Tel Aviv.

Dr Henry Ward is a London-based artist, writer, curator and educator, and currently serves as Creative Director of the Freelands Foundation. Ward has written and lectured widely on the arts and art education, and works across a range of artistic mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and collage.

This year’s top prize (an individual cash award of $10,000 plus an additional $10,000 worth of art materials provided by Zart for the winner’s school) went to Roxanne Lillis from Mount Carmel Catholic College, Varroville NSW, for her work, ‘Phoenix Rising #3’. This work is one of a series of paintings Roxanne produced in response to losing “everything she owned” in 2019 bushfires, as Judge Barton noted.

Barton continued: “Roxanne Lillis’s “Phoenix Rising #3” is a powerful, dynamic painting, the pictorial space resolved by both kinetic mark making and confident colour-blocking. Bravo to a very worthy winner!”

“We were absolutely delighted with the response to the prize, receiving an overwhelming amount of entries. The prize was initiated by Zart to celebrate, encourage and recognise the art practice of Australian school teachers. The support from the art teaching community in its first year has been truly inspiring. The 2022 NTAP Prize is going to be huge.”

Nic Plowman
Zart Education Manager