AGES Society Art Prize
Submissions for a $10,000 cash prize are considered by the AGES Society Board of Directors for three (3) commissioned artworks, to be the covers of our three annual meeting brochures each year.
About the Art Prize
Submissions are now closed for the 2024/2025 Annual AGES Society Art Prize. After consideration by the AGES Society Board, Reeva Ashton has been announced as the winner for this year's prize. Reeva has been commissioned for three artworks for the covers of our three annual meeting brochures. For more information about Reeva, and to view some of her works, please scroll down.
Our previous winner Matthew Gillett's three commissioned pieces were auctioned at the AGES Society Annual Scientific Meeting at the Gala Dinner on 1st March 2024, with all proceeds going to the charity, RizeUp.
Our previous winners have been Fiona Omeenyo (2016/2017), Carrie Pitcher (2017/2018), Shannon Hamilton (2018/2019), Lucila Zentner (2019/2020), Sally Ann Harrison (2020/2021), Cristina Metelli (2021/2022), Susan Nethercote (2022/2023) and Matthew Gillett (2023/2024) whose three works were used to promote the meetings, are on our website. The artwork is distributed through various print media to a circulation of more than 6,000 doctors and health professionals.
AGES Society Art Prize is judged on a variety of criteria, including but not limited to; creativity and originality; composition and design; technique and craftsmanship; and interpretation and clarity of a concept.
Every year the three works are auctioned at the March AGES Annual Scientific Meeting, with all proceeds going to a charity of the AGES Board’s choice.
For more information, including details on applying, schedule requirements and terms & conditions, please download the following terms & conditions document.
AGES Society Supported Charities
Through the AGES Annual Black-tie Gala Dinner, Awards and Charity Auction, the following funds have been raised and donated:
| Year | Charity | Auction / Donation Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | RizeUp | $18,725.00 |
| 2023 | Lou's Place | $18,400.00 |
| 2022 | Panzi Foundation | $31,150.00 |
| 2020 | Women’s Community Shelters | $29,750.00 |
| 2019 | R U OK? | $31,000.00 |
| 2018 | Share the Dignity | $19,800.00 |
| 2017 | Anti-Slavery Australia | $20,250.00 |
Our Winners
2024 / 2025
Reeva Ashton
Biography: Reeva is an emerging artist and psychologist living and working in the greater Melbourne region. Her paintings explore contemporary media and the juxtaposition between realism and abstraction, with an often bright and vibrant colour palette subconsciously informed by her allied health work. Reeva has been a finalist in a number of recent art awards including the Lethbridge 20000 small scale art award 2023, Bluethumb art prize 2023, and the Agendo art prize 2021, in addition to some smaller local and upcoming awards. Historically, with an early interest in photography, Reeva has additionally won local photographic awards and became a finalist in the 2007 Doug Moran Photographic Prize (student category).
Artist Statement: My work explores the dynamic interplay between realism and abstraction in a harmonious composition. Although inherently juxtaposed forms of traditional painting styles, I aim to create a sense of balance between them. Abstraction in my work takes many forms; at times through peculiarly layered realistic elements or through exploratory processes including the use of shape, form, and colour. Working across two bodies of work—one that depicts realistic florals that seem to swirl and fall into abstracted backgrounds, and the other that explores portraiture, art history, and contemporary digital media—my work is often described as colourful and dreamlike yet inherently balanced.
Instagram: @ashtonfineart
Reeva's pieces will be auctioned off at the AGES Annual Scientific Meeting 2025.
2023 / 2024
Matthew Gillett
They say artists are born and not made; Matthew Gillett was forged from the fires of Hell, although city records indicate twas from two middle-class office workers on the South Coast. Whatever the truth, this riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a wetsuit, sees this adrenaline charged creative junkie as at ease charging the face of waves around the world, as when airborne above a forty foot table-top on his Motocross bike.
Having first found a demand for his work through surfing buddies, all eager to have his original designs splashed across their boards, Matty was lucky enough to have stumbled across established artist Gabrielle Pool in 2004. Urged to take his creative talent more seriously, Gillett, enthused by Gabrielle's reassuring presence and the buoyant words from supportive family and friends, has since turned his artistic spark into a white-hot flame.
So it is now, under the cloak of darkness, that this contrasting character purges nothing but honesty and raw emotion onto the unsuspecting canvas that lays in wait for his often joyous, at times pained, yet always free and poetic onslaught of vibrant oils.
A truly original spirit "Matty G" lives life as he paints. At times gritty and haphazard, at times elegant and graceful, Matty will employ his own independently crafted techniques and spontaneous aesthetics to create something unexpected and always engaging. This self-taught kid from the coast with a dream is not unlike the first Samurai to pick up a sword, sans master, and rely on natural instincts to guide his hand and mind to often stunningly devastating effects.
My art is as much about breaking down the barrier for other people to talk about my art as it is for my own healing process.
Instagram: @matthewgillettartist
Matt's pieces were auctioned off at the AGES Annual Scientific Meeting 2024.
2022 / 2023
Susan Nethercote
Susan Nethercote is an abstract floral and botanical painter living in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia with her husband and two little girls. She paints in acrylics and mixed media and is deeply inspired by nature and the gardens she encounters both in her local neighbourhood and on her overseas adventures.
Susan’s work is a colourful, contemporary, expressionistic take on the long tradition of botanical art. Her work aims to capture the exquisite feeling of being amongst flowers rather than document nature. Susan sees her painting practice as the way in which she communes with the beauty of the world and the soul of nature.
Susan's work is held in private collections across four continents and also licenses her work to magazines and décor brands globally.
I’m an abstract floral and botanical artist, podcaster and educator.
I’m a big believer in the healing power of beauty, that colour is a language of the soul, and that nature is the ultimate muse.
Susan's pieces were auctioned off at the AGES XXXIII Annual Scientific Meeting 2023.
2021 / 2022
Cristina Metelli
Cristina Metelli was born in Milan and studied at art school there as a teenager. She later immigrated to Adelaide where she continued her artistic education, completing a Bachelor Degree in Visual Art (Honours). Her studio practice is based on painting and sculpture. Inspired by the diversity and beauty of nature, her work investigates the depth to which human lives are entwined and connected to the natural environment through subjects of belonging, spirit of place and nature’s vulnerability.
My abstract paintings express my emotional and sensorial response to the natural Australian landscape, which I find both healing and uplifting. Each painting captures a moment in time, reflecting a deep connection to place. A bold use of colours and paint application techniques, seeks to evoke in the viewer their own memories and emotions relating to nature, which may bring a sense of calm or excitement.
Cristina's pieces were auctioned off at the AGES XXXII Annual Scientific Meeting 2022.
2020 / 2021
Sally Ann Harrison
Sally Harrison is based in Lowood, South East Queensland, and is recognised for her distinctive use of traditional dot painting in a contemporary impressionistic style. She has been exhibited in galleries across Australia and overseas.
I am a semi-professional indigenous artist of the “stolen generations”, but grew up knowing nothing of aboriginal culture nor my family. In 1992, a mid-life crisis led me to SkillShare at Carnarvon, WA where I learnt to dot paint. In 2006, I won the Ipswich Art Award. My paintings have been exhibited in many joint exhibitions at Brisbane, Ipswich, Gold Coast and Byron Bay, and 6 successful solo exhibitions between 2005 and 2019. My works are held in The City of Ipswich Art Collection as well as private collections throughout Australia and overseas.
Sally’s pieces were auctioned off at the AGES XXXII Annual Scientific Meeting 2022.
2019 / 2020
Lucila Zentner
Lucila Zentner is an Australian artist working predominantly in oils.
Lucila combines a love and practice of fine art with a career in medicine, practising as a Radiologist and Nuclear Medicine specialist.
I paint to hold onto a moment, to thrill the senses, to delight, to mourn and to live. My paintings are oil on canvas or linen, representational, mildly abstracted, expressionistic. All are of people, places or ideas. I enjoy gestures, light and form and shadows. My muses are my family, my friends and the Australian landscape. My styles are diverse, but the brush -strokes are always solid, definite and final.
2018 / 2019
Shannon Hamilton
Shannon Hamilton creates appealing, familiar and exciting contemporary artwork which has found popularity throughout Australia and overseas.
Having loved art from a young age, Shannon developed her unique self-taught style during her career as an occupational therapist.
Giving occupational therapy away in 2000 to explore her own potential, Shannon has gone on to achieve outstanding success.
Shannon’s paintings feature strong, bold strokes of colour, tastefully capturing the sensuality of the human form in the warmth of Australian sunlight. Having travelled the world, she also draws upon African and Asian cultures with a focus on warmth of human relationships, especially of mother and child.
Shannon’s work, more recently, focuses largely on the warmth or human relationships, especially the bond between mother and child. She is becoming increasingly known for her soulful works.
2018 / 2019
Carrie Pitcher
Carrie Pitcher is an emerging contemporary artist based in Melbourne, notable for her portraits, that are at once both representational and abstract.
Working with acrylic on canvas, she marries abstract expressionism: swathes of bold colour, and opportunistic mark making, with the narrative of the portrait.
Close-cropped composition and sheer scale create a feeling of intimacy, while layer upon layer of abstract colour impart dynamic energy as if projected across the motif—chosen for a particular quality that engages the artist’s aesthetic sensibility.
Exploring themes of feminine dynamism and identity, the figurative and the abstract are brought together in a body of work that expresses an undefined personal significance, an extension of the artist herself.
Carrie’s artworks will be distributed through various print media to a circulation of more than
2017 / 2018
Fiona Omeenyo
Fiona Omeenyo, from the Lockhart River ‘Art Gang’, was the winner of the AGES Society Art Prize in 2016.
Fiona’s three (3) commissioned artworks, as seen below, were featured on the covers of the AGES Pelvic Floor Symposium 2016, AGES Focus Meeting 2016 and the AGES ASM 2017 brochures.
Fiona’s artworks will be auctioned off at the AGES XXVII ASM 2017 during the Black Tie Gala Awards Dinner, with the proceeds to be donated to Anti-Slavery Australia (www.antislavery.org.au), who are working tirelessly to abolish slavery at local, national and international levels.