Artist Thea Anamara Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman, with family ties to the Redfern community in Sydney. At just 29 years old, she’s been nominated for the Archibald Prize for the last three consecutive years, with her confident and courageous painting style. She imbues people and landscapes with emotion and vulnerability, and is known for her personal portraits of prominent First Nations figures.
Among her other accolades (she was a finalist in the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, The Alice Prize 2020 and has exhibited as part of Tarnanthi) Thea won the Australia Council’s Dreaming Award for emerging First Nations artists in 2020, which she plans to use to develop workshops with the Tangentyere Town Camp Artists in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). On top of that, she is a NATSIAA finalist for 2021, and is about to launch her first ever solo show – Shimmer – this month.
In case you haven’t worked it out yet, this is one young artist destined for very big things.
