Main Awards 2022 | Judging Panellists

We’re honoured and delighted to announce the expert judging panel for The Lester Prize 2022.

We are thrilled to present this year’s Main Awards Judges. These experts will select the winners of The Richard Lester Prize for Portraiture ($50,000), the Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize ($5,000) and a Highly Commended Prize (up to $5,000) which will be exhibited at The Art Gallery of Western Australia from 1 October – 13 November 2022.

Penelope Grist

Penelope (Penny) Grist is Curator Exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery. Penny holds a Master of Liberal Arts (Museums and Collections) from the Australian National University and honours degrees in Law and Art History from the University of Sydney.

She has twice judged the National Photographic Portrait Prize (2016 and 2020) and has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions including Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits (2017), Before hand: The Private Life of a Portrait (2020), and Who Are You: Australian Portraiture (2022).

Penny has also worked at the National Library of Australia, National Museum of Australia, and the Office for the Arts. She writes regularly for arts publications and exhibition catalogues, and served on the National Council of the Australian Museums and Galleries Association between 2019 and 2021.

In 2019, Penny was one of twenty Australians selected for the Australia Council for the Arts Future Leaders Program. She also volunteers as Chair of the Board of PhotoAccess, the ACT and region’s centre for contemporary photography, film and video and media arts. 

Jessyca Hutchens

Jessyca Hutchens is a Palyku woman, living and working in Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia.

She is an art historian and curator, currently in the final stages of a DPhil in art history at the University of Oxford and working as Curator at the Berndt Museum, The University of Western Australia. Jessyca worked as the Curatorial Assistant to Artistic Director Brook Andrew at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, a groundbreaking Indigenous-led edition titled NIRIN.

She has also worked as a lecturer in global art history at the University of Birmingham and is one of the founding editors of an online journal of artistic research, OAR Platform.

Her writing has been published in numerous catalogues and in publications such as Third Text, Artlink, Artist Profile and AQNB.

Colin Walker

Colin Walker has been the Director of The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) since 2019.

Prior to that, he was the Executive Director of Culture and the Arts at the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (DLGSC) for four years.

Originally from Liverpool, UK, he was previously the Director of Arts & Business, a consultant to the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) for its Fellowship and Cultural Leadership programs, and an arts sponsorship consultant to a number of international brands and many of the most recognisable arts institutions in the UK.