Meet the judge

Jude Rae

Jude Rae is a Sydney based artist known for her still life paintings, portraits and architectural interiors. The low key, non-narrative imagery she employs allows the attention to dwell on the formal and material aspects of representational painting, encouraging a more reflective and considered approach to the complexities of visual experience.

In 2005 and 2008 Jude won the Portia Geach Memorial Award for Portraiture and was Highly Commended in the Archibald Prize in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Over the last two decades she has undertaken significant portrait commissions in Australia and New Zealand including the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, the Federal Parliament of Australia, the High Court of Australia.

Jude is the 2025 winner of the prestigious Wynne Prize for landscape painting or figure sculpture at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.

“Aotearoa New Zealand has been very kind to me over the years and I consider it to be my second home. Ideally a portrait is a close encounter that reveals something essential about both the subject and the artist. This is a great honour for me and I am looking forward to encountering the variety, integrity and imagination that New Zealand artists bring to the ancient and complex genre of painting”.

For more, visit: www.juderae.com