Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre is well worth a visit. The 2026 Hornsby Art Prize Finalists’ Exhibition opens October 16 and runs through November 1. This year’s competition is bigger than ever, featuring 86 finalists selected from 567 national entries.
Hornsby Shire Council puts the prize on with the Hornsby Art Society, and the shortlist covers painting, sculpture, photography, drawing and printmaking, so there’s genuinely something for whatever mood you walk in with. Wander the whole room and you’ll likely see a dozen different ideas about what Australian art looks like right now.
The stakes are real too: $23,000 in prize money altogether, with $10,000 going to whoever takes out the major prize. Local entrants are also in the running for the Hornsby Shire Local Artist Award, a category set aside just for artists from the shire.
Two judges are weighing it all up this year — Archibald Prize winner Guido Maestri and still life painter Mirra Whale — and their picks get revealed at the award ceremony on Friday 16 October, opening night for the exhibition.
Mayor Warren Waddell has talked up the exhibition as a rare chance to see this much contemporary Australian art in one place without leaving Hornsby, and Hornsby Art Society president Chris Beard reckons the growing entry numbers say something about how well the prize is regarded outside the local area.
Doors are open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am–4 pm, and it won’t cost you a cent to get in. Full details, including how the judging works, are at hornsby.nsw.gov.au/artprize.
