When One Brisbane Artist Paints Another: Julie Fragar Has Won the 2025 Archibald Prize for Her Portrait of Justene Williams

Where do artists find inspiration? The answer to that question is virtually endless, as perusing the Archibald Prize finalists every year illustrates. For the acclaimed Australian portraiture award, sometimes actors, musicians, comedians and filmmakers provide a spark. Authors, footballers, the folks doing the painting themselves: they all fit, too. Frequently, though, fellow artists inspire others to get the creative juices flowing. Among recent Archie winners, that was true for Tony Costa with Lindy Lee, Blak Douglas with Karla Dickens and Peter Wegner with Guy Warren, for instance — and, in 2025, it's also the case for Julie Fragar with her likeness of Justene Williams.

This year's pick for the prestigious prize, Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), is also an instance of one Brisbane artist painting another to claim the $100,000 award. Fragar's win makes it three in a row for women at the Archies since 2023, following Laura Jones in 2024 with her portrait of author Tim Winton and Julia Gutman the year prior for a depiction of Montaigne. That said, Fragar is still just the 13th woman to win the 104-year-old art accolade. Even with recipients who've emerged victorious more than once — Judy Cassab in 1960 and 1967, and Del Kathryn Barton in2008 and 2013 — this is still only the 15th time that the prize has gone to a female talent.

Winner Archibald Prize 2025, Julie Fragar 'Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene)', oil on canvas, 240 x 180.4 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter.

"You work your whole career imagining this might happen one day. Thinking back to myself as a 17-year-old showing up at the Sydney College of the Arts — a kid from country New South Wales — it's incredible to think I have won the Archibald Prize," said Fragar about her win.

"Portrait painting wasn't taken as seriously in the 1990s as it is today. I have always regarded the Archibald Prize as a place that understood the value of portraiture. To be the winner of the Archibald Prize is a point of validation. It means so much to have the respect of my colleagues at the Art Gallery. It doesn't get better than that."

Fragar is the Head of Painting at the Queensland College of Art and Design, where Williams is the Head of Sculpture. "Justene is incredible. I feel very fortunate that she allowed me to do this portrait. There is nobody like her. The work is a reflection on the experience of making art to deadlines, and the labour and love of being a mother," said Fragar of her now-Archibald Prize-winning subject.

"Here are two of Australia's great artists in conversation about what matters most to them. Julie Fragar has a sumptuous ability to transcend reality and depict her subjects technically but also psychologically. Justene Williams is a larger-than-life character, a performer — cacophonous and joyous," noted Art Gallery of New South Wales Director Maud Page about 2025's pick.

"In this work, she is surrounded by her own artworks and, most important of all, her daughter Honore as a tiny figure atop a sculpture. It speaks to me as a powerful rendition of the juggle some of us perform as mothers and professionals."

Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene) was selected from a pool of 57 finalists, including another awarded two-artist combination in Abdul Abdullah's portrait of fellow creative Jason Phu, aka 2025's Packing Room Prize recipient. Other contenders included likenesses of Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, Boy Swallows Universe star Felix Cameron, Miranda Otto, Grace Tame, Vincent Namatjira, filmmaker Warwick Thornton and comedian Aaron Chen, as whittled down from a total pool of 904 Archibald Prize entries for 2025.

AGNSW also awards the Wynne and Sulman prizes at the same time as the Archibald — and across all three, from 2394 submissions, 2025 marks the first year that there were more finalist works by women artists in the accolades' history.

Winner Wynne Prize 2025, Jude Rae 'Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal', oil on linen, 200 x 150.4 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio.

For $50,000 Wynne Prize, which is all about landscape painting — and is Australia's oldest art award — Sydney artist Jude Rae's Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal was picked from 52 finalists and 758 entries. This is the third time that Rae has made the top batch of Wynne contenders. She's also been an Archie finalist four times (in 2014, 2019, 2021 and 2022) and was a Sulman finalist in 2021.

"There is something compelling about the constantly flashing gantry lights and the floodlights blasting away in those hours just before dawn. I am up at various times and love to watch the pre-dawn light, when the sky is just starting to change colour. From my bathroom window on the fifth floor of my building, I have a clear view of that scene. There is no way to photograph it — it's too subtle and too fleeting. It's a big sky and we're all really little," Rae said about her piece.

Winner Sulman Prize 2025, Gene A'Hern 'Sky painting', oil and oil stick on board, 240 x 240 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio.

The Sulman rewards genre painting, subject painting and mural projects, with Gene A'Hern 2025's pick for the Blue Mountains-inspired Sky painting, getting the top nod for the $40,000 gong from this year's 30 finalists and 732 entries.

"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," said A'Hern.

"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."

2025's winners and finalists across all three prizes are on display at AGNSW from Saturday, May 10–Sunday, August 17, 2025, before touring to Geelong Gallery, Gosford Regional Gallery, Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, Mudgee Arts Precinct and Shoalhaven Regional Gallery over the 11 months afterwards.

Archibald Prize 2025 Exhibition Dates

Saturday, May 10–Sunday, August 17, 2025 — Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, NSW
Saturday, August 30–Sunday, November 9, 2025 — Geelong Gallery, Victoria
Saturday, November 22, 2025–Sunday, January 11, 2026 — Gosford Regional Gallery, NSW
Saturday, January 23–Saturday, March 7, 2026 — Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, NSW
Friday, March 20–Saturday, May 3, 2026 — Mudgee Arts Precinct, NSW
Saturday, May 16–Sunday, July 19, 2026 — Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, NSW

2024's Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prize-winners will display at various locations around the country from Saturday, May 10, 2025. If you can't make it to any of the above exhibition dates, you can check out the winners and finalists of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes on the Art Gallery of NSW website.

Top image: Excerpt of winner Archibald Prize 2025, Julie Fragar 'Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene)', oil on canvas, 240 x 180.4 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter. Sitter: Justene Williams.

Excerpt of winner Wynne Prize 2025, Jude Rae 'Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal', oil on linen, 200 x 150.4 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio.

Excerpt of winner Sulman Prize 2025, Gene A'Hern 'Sky painting', oil and oil stick on board, 240 x 240 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio.

Installation images: Installation view, 'Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025', Art Gallery of New South Wales, photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio.