2025 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) Exhibition Opens at Artspace this August

Artspace, in partnership with Create NSW, is delighted to announce the opening of its latest exhibition, the 2025 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) from Thursday 21 August to Sunday 19 October 2025.

The 2025 NSW VAF(E) exhibition surveys the breadth and depth of contemporary practice by early-career artists in New South Wales. Featuring new and recent works, the exhibition features six shortlisted finalists selected by a panel of industry peers. One finalist will receive $30,000 to undertake a self-directed program of professional development. The recipient will be announced on Thursday 21 August, 6.30pm at the exhibition opening night at Artspace.

The shortlisted finalists for 2025 are: Ellen Ferrier, Ellie Hannon, Ali Noble, Vedika Rampal, Joel Sherwood Spring and Ali Tahayori.

Artspace’s Director, Victor Wang said:

‘For over 25 years, Artspace has been proud to partner with Create NSW on the NSW VAF(E) exhibition, a vital platform that continues to shape the future of contemporary art in our region. VAF(E) not only celebrates the ambition and rigour of emerging artists across New South Wales, but also provides meaningful opportunities for experimentation and visibility. We’re especially excited to continue our partnership with Parramatta Artists Studios through the Ideas Platform and Banner Series—initiatives that spotlight the energy and urgency of the next generation.’

Artspace’s Associate Curator, Sarah Rose said:

‘The VAF(E) exhibition is always an exciting look into how the next generation of artists are practicing right now. The VAF(E) program offers crucial support for early-career artists in NSW, providing them with an invaluable opportunity to be in dialogue with their contemporaries and cultivate new peer relationships. Each shortlisted finalist has developed an ambitious presentation that is grounded in experimentation, risk-taking and pushing boundaries. Collectively, they traverse a broad range of conceptual and material concerns to variably question, disrupt and comment on critical ideas of our times.’

VAF(E) is awarded annually by Create NSW and has been presented in partnership with Artspace since 1997, continuing to define new generations of contemporary art practice for both artists, curators and audiences.

With over 120 years of history, VAF(E) is a key exhibition for profiling the dynamism of emerging contemporary artistic practice in NSW.

Opening alongside VAF(E) are two projects presented in partnership with Parramatta Artists Studios (PAS) in the organisations’ eighth annual collaboration. This year works by PAS alumni and former VAF(E) finalists EJ Son and Tom Polo will be featured in the Ideas Platform and Banner series respectively.

For the Ideas Platform, Sydney-based multidisciplinary artist EJ Son will present a new iteration of their work Fountain, 2025. Through provocation, paradox and humour, Son interrogates the power structures that shape contemporary understandings of gender, sexuality and race

For the Banner Series, a work by Sydney-based artist Tom Polo will be presented. Working between abstraction and figuration, Polo blurs boundaries between the self and others, to mask and unveil the complexities of our inner worlds.

For more information, please visit: artspace.org.au.

The 2025 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) is developed and curated by Artspace, Sydney, in partnership with the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Applications for the 2026 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging) program are open from Monday 25 August and will close Tuesday 7 October, 5pm (AEST). For more information visit create.nsw.gov.au