Portrait of an Artist: Julie Fragar Wins Archibald Prize for Her Portrait of Artist Justene Williams

When Julie Fragar was a young girl growing up in the regional NSW town of Wee Waa, she dreamt about one day having an artwork accepted into the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s HSC showcase Art Express. She would go on to achieve that dream, but you could say she’s now gone one better after being announced as the winner of the 2025 Archibald Prize. Fragar took home the $100,000 prize for her winning portrait of close friend, colleague and fellow artist Justene Williams.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “You work your whole career imagining this might happen [but] visual arts careers have many ups and downs so, after many years of practice, one learns not to be too hopeful.”

Titled Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene) the oil-on-canvas piece is a detailed, realistic, yet supernatural painting that depicts a levitating Williams as an “active master of a multiverse of characters and events”, hair fanning out like a halo and conjuring up a jumble of sculptures and installations beneath her. A tiny figure in the left-hand corner is revealed to be Willams’s young daughter Honore, gazing up at her mother.

Fragar and Williams attended Sydney College of the Arts together in the 1990s before each relocating independently to Brisbane, where they also both now work at the Queensland College of Art and Design as head of painting and head of sculpture respectively.

This is Fragar’s fourth time as an Archibald finalist and she noted how important it was to choose a sitter you were fond of.

“When you plan on spending three months with someone’s image in your studio, you’d better make sure you like them,” she laughed, before adding: “I made this painting because I wanted to honour the incredible multiverse of artwork that seemed always to be exploding from Justene, spinning not quite out of control.” A multimedia artist, Williams’s practice spans performance, photography, video, installation, sculpture, and opera.

Rather than a formal sitting, Fragar took a series of photographs of Williams, then spent three months in her studio bringing the work to life. Williams hadn’t seen the portrait until the announcement and she became emotional when expressing her thoughts.

“There’s so much detail and history of my work [in the portrait]. She knew my practice, she knows me, and I’m actually very humbled, Julie, so thank you.”

Now in its 104th year, the Archibald Prize for portrait painting attracted 904 entries this year, narrowed down to 57 finalists selected by the AGNSW’s board of trustees. Finalists featured three portraits of musicians (including Rainbow Chan and William Barton), six of stage and screen stars (such as Nicole Kidman and Hugo Weaving) and overwhelmingly other artists (22, including Abdul Abdullah’s Packing Room Prize-winning portrait of fellow 2025 Archibald finalist Jason Phu).

Gallery director Maud Page, who recently took over from Michael Brand (who stepped down in March after 13 years), noted the Archibald Prize-winning work depicted two of Australia’s great artists in conversation about what matters most to them.

“Julie Fragar has a sumptuous ability to transcend reality and depict her subjects technically but also psychologically. Justene Williams is a larger-than-life character, a performer – cacophonous and joyous... It speaks to me as a powerful rendition of the juggle some of us perform as mothers and professionals.”

This is only the 15th time the Archibald Prize has been awarded to a woman since the competition began in 1921.

The $50,000 Wynne Prize for landscape painting or figurative sculpture, also decided by the board of trustees and chosen from 52 finalists, was awarded to Sydney artist Jude Rae for her oil-on-linen painting Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal , painted out of the window of her upstairs bathroom. The piece is an acknowledgement of the impact of colonialism on Aboriginal people.

The $40,000 Sulman Prize for best genre painting, subject painting or mural – this year judged by artist Elizabeth Pulie – was won by Gene A’Hern for his work Sky painting , an oil-on-board gestural work depicting his relationship with the Blue Mountains, where he lives and works. It was selected from a field of 30 finalists.

The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes 2025 are on display at the AGNSW until August 17.

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