Judges

Finalist works are selected by an eminent panel of judges and shown in an exhibition at Holmes à Court Gallery in Gooyaman West Perth. The artwork awarded the Mandorla Art Prize is acquired into the Mandorla Collection, held at the New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery, with the winning artist awarded $30,000, thanks to the generosity of St John of God Health Care. There are four other non-acquisitive art prizes awarded.

The selection panel and judges for the 2024 Mandorla Art Award are:

Hannah Mathews

Director of Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, WA

Over the last twenty years Hannah has held key curatorial positions at Monash University Museum of Art, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Next Wave, The South Project and the Biennale of Sydney. Hannah graduated with a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne in 2002 and has completed curatorial residencies in New York, Berlin, Tokyo and Venice. She has taught in curatorial programs at Melbourne University, Monash University and RMIT University, Melbourne and has held various board positions, including National Association for the Visual Arts. Her publication, To Note: Notation Across Disciplines won the inaugural Cornish Family Book Prize for Art and Design Publishing in 2018.  

Richard Lewer

Visual Artist, Vic

Richard is a visual artist living in Naarm Melbourne and born in New Zealand, who works across painting, drawing, installation and animation. His practice investigates contemporary social realism and experiments with notions of the artist’s role as a commentator or interpreter, often investigating difficult or taboo subject matter. His projects explored war, crime, religion, mental illness, fly-in-fly-out culture, Frontier Wars, euthanasia, Aboriginal deaths in custody and sporting failure. Richard has exhibited extensively across Australia and New Zealand and his work is held in major collections, including at the National Gallery of Australia, Auckland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. His paintings have been selected as finalist works in the Archibald Prize four times and he has been awarded the Basil Sellers Art Prize and Blake Art Prize.  

Raewynne Whiteley

Theologian, WA & UK

Raewynne was the Warden of Wollaston Theological College from 2022 until 2024. Prior to this she spent four years in the Diocese of Southwark in England, first as the Discipleship and Vocations Minister and then as Deputy Director of Discipleship and Lay Ministry. She holds a PhD in Pastoral Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in the United States and a joint degree in Theology and Ministry from the Australian College of Theology. Her written works in prose, poetry, song, and prayer have been extensively published, including in her celebrated book ​Steeped in the Holy (2007).