Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award 2025: Winners Announced
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) has announced the 2025 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) winners, with Gaypalani Wanambi from Yirrkala, Arnhem Land, receiving the prestigious $100,000 2025 Telstra Art Award for her monumental etched metal work, Burwu, blossom 2025.
Gaypalani is the eldest daughter of renowned artist Wukun Waṉambi (1962–2022), whom she assisted as she was growing up. Their family home doubled as an art studio from her earliest years. The verandahs or the lounge room would invariably be the scene of art production, with a large pole or bark being worked on by her parents and siblings. Her father’s renditions of thousands of tiny fish demanded ultimate patience and precision. She carried much of the workload of assisting him, including grinding the ochre pigments.
Before her father’s sudden death in 2022, Gaypalani had begun to produce work in her own right and under her name with his blessing. By this time, her father had broadened his practice to include innovative digital work through the Mulka Project and was a member of the Found group of artists who engraved recycled road signs. After her father’s passing, cultural protocol required her to avoid using his designs. Instead, Gaypalani began to create artwork from the epic song poetry relating to the journeys of Wuyal, the Ancestral honey hunter.
Gaypalani was a 2023 Telstra NATSIAA finalist and in 2024 won the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize. Her work is held in the collections of MAGNT, Parliament House (Canberra), Powerhouse (Sydney) and numerous private collections.
Telstra Art Award
Burwu, blossom 2025: Artwork story
This work is about Wuyal, the Ancestral honey hunter, an important Ancestor of the Marrakulu clan. Wuyal was the first man to look for a homeland for the Marrakulu people. He began a journey from Ŋilipitji through Gurka’wuy, travelling via Yuḏuyuḏu to Cape Shield, up to Trial Bay and along the Goyder River until he came to Nhulun, or Mount Saunders. He felled the Ancestral Waṉambi tree, causing a river of honey and thus founded the Marrakulu clan homeland at Gurka’wuy. The Marrakulu dance as bees in their ceremony, elbows extended, hands clutching stringybark leaves, which vibrate as wings.
Our 2025 Telstra NATSIAA panel of judges include: Stephen Gilchrist, Gail Mabo and Brian Martin.
“Gaypalani Waṉambi is the winner of the 2025 Telstra Art Award valued at $100,000 for her etched steel and aerosol work Burwu, blossom,” judges’ commented.
“This is an exceptional work that visually and materially explores different relationships to and understandings of Country. Presenting two worlds with two sides, the epic Ancestral journeys of Wuyal are delicately engraved onto the silvery surfaces of discarded road signs. Each time the viewer moves, the work responds accordingly, revealing and concealing the undulations and intangible lifeforces of Country. Each jewel-like panel shimmers with exquisitely rendered designs that are deeply anchored to Yolŋu philosophies. Despite its scale and its composite parts, there is a visual cohesion to the work that has been ambitiously, intentionally and expertly assembled.”
“We are delighted to celebrate Gaypalani Waṉambi as the recipient of the 2025 Telstra Art Award,” says Adam Worrall (MAGNT).
“Gaypalani’s work about Wuyal, the Ancestral honey hunter is a testament to her exceptional talent and deep connection to the stories of the Marrakulu clan homeland at Gurka’wuy. Her depiction of the epic song poetry relating to the journeys of Wuyal, as he looked for a homeland, is a powerful reflection of Ancestral stories and pays homage to her father, renowned artist Wukun Waṉambi (1962–2022), whom she assisted as she was growing up.”
More information
Awards Ceremony
- Date: Friday, 8 August 2025
- Time: 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM ACST
- Location: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), 19 Conacher Street, The Gardens, Darwin
- Free registration
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- Open until Sunday 26 January 2026
- Virtual Gallery is now live
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