Tamara Dean wins 2026 Bowness Photography Prize

Australian photographer Tamara Dean has been named the winner of the 2026 Bowness Photography Prize for her self-portrait Metamorphosis (2025).

Dean used her personal physique as the topic for the underwater {photograph}, which explores themes of transformation, ageing, fragility and renewal.

Created in a purpose-built underwater studio, the picture was made by Dean working alone, shifting between a timer-set digital camera and an underwater pool whereas managing flowing material.

“It was one of the most personally challenging works I have made,” Dean says. “The vulnerability of the process mirrored the work’s themes of fragility, transformation, persistence, and renewal.”

The {photograph} additionally displays on Dean lately turning 50 and her ideas on ageing and impermanence.

“I imagined myself unfurling like a flower opening towards light, emerging from a luminous yellow form,” she says.

Two photographers acquired honourable mentions: Ingvar Kenne for Termite mounds on Marra Country [Limmen NP, NT] (2025), and Justine Varga for Concussion #1 (2026).

The judging panel comprised artist and 2014 Bowness Photography Prize winner Petrina Hicks, National Gallery of Victoria Senior Curator Photography Natasha Bullock, and MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea. They chosen the winner and two honourable mentions from 50 finalists.

The judges praised the three artists for his or her distinct approaches to pictures and the mixture of sturdy ideas with cautious technical execution.

Kenne’s black-and-white {photograph} of termite mounds was famous for its tonal vary, texture and therapy of the Australian panorama, whereas Varga’s Concussion #1 was recognised for its use of camera-less photographic processes.

For Varga’s work, movie and photographic paper are uncovered to gentle, warmth, chemical compounds and bodily dealing with, with the ensuing marks recording the passage of time and the artist’s course of.

The 2026 Bowness Photography Prize is the twenty first version of the annual exhibition, which showcases up to date photographic work from Australian artists.

You can see the part of finalists here.