NVR ENF (Never Enough), Underglaze, glaze and Pebeo on stoneware
Remagine Art Prize has been running long enough to develop a personality. Every year since Hornsby Art Society first backed it — more than 15 years ago now — the prize has picked a theme, released it into the world, and let artists do what artists do: take a straightforward idea and make it strange enough to actually look at.
The 2026 theme was “Built to Expire,” and the question beneath it is not complicated. Why do so many of the things we buy seem designed to stop working just after the warranty runs out? It is a question most of us have felt but rarely sat with long enough to find genuinely uncomfortable. The artists in this year’s exhibition sat with it. Some of what came back is genuinely hard to shake.
The first prize — $5,000 — went to Maree Louise MacDermid, a Glenhaven-based ceramic artist, for a work called NVR ENF (Never Enough). A hearse. Stacked with luxury goods. The image is almost too obvious until it isn’t. A hearse is supposed to carry one thing. MacDermid’s version can barely fit it.
The judges for 2026 — Ed Woolley, Dario Falzon, Sophie Odling and Alex Davies — also recognised West Ryde’s Karen Coull with the $2,000 Highly Commended for Traces of Flour and Love, built from discarded vintage cookbooks. There is something pointed about choosing cookbooks: objects made to be used, passed around, written in, and kept.
Objects that were never supposed to expire at all. Dulwich Hill’s Madi Feist took the $1,500 Recycled/Reused Materials Award for Redback, constructed from Norfolk pine needles and an assortment of recycled materials. Hornsby local Patrick Heuzenroder won the Local Artist Award and $1,000 for Spontalia. Gordon resident Adelina Pochueva won the Youth Award (18–25 years) and $1,000 for Built to Inspire, an upcycled dress.
The prize is hosted by Hornsby Shire Council in partnership with Hornsby Art Society. Hornsby Art Society has kept its name on this for over 15 years — longer, probably, than most of the appliances that inspired the 2026 theme.
The exhibition closes on Sunday, 31 May 2026. If you’re in Hornsby before then, it is worth the walk in. The work does not exactly make you feel good. It just makes you think about the last three things you threw away — and whether you needed them in the first place.
Remagine Art Prize 2026 finalist exhibition
Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre
25 Edgeworth David Avenue, Hornsby NSW
Open daily 10 am–4 pm until Sunday 31 May 2026. Free entry.
