2nd Prize Winner, MPB Photography Award Winners 2026

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2026

Judith Nangala Crispin

Title:

“Off the South Coast, where Christmas tourist traffic threads the Kings Highway, and stops for no reason, not for bird or fallen roo-the ocean gathers up Brendan, at the edge of water, remakes his shattered hind leg and broken tail, his heard, the shock of it all, his mother lost in the night scrub and the wall of lights that bore down. And the morning will lift him up like mountains.” 

Medium & Dimensions:

Cameraless work made in a geodesic dome, Lumachrome Glass Print, Chemigram, Drawing. Roadkilled Eastern Grey Joey, sand, seeds, Vegemite, charcoal, graphite, colour pencils, darkroom chemistry and ink on fibre paper. Exposed 36 hours in a perspex box, hand annotated under red light, re-exposed 10 hours

About the Artist

Judith Nangala Crispin is an award-winning poet and photographic artist of mixed descent, living on unceded Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country, and a member of FNAWN (First Nations Australia Writers Network). Judith holds a Ph.D in music and a Doctor of Arts in Visual Art and Poetry. She’s published a poetry collections‘The Myrrh-Bearers’ , and two books of poetry and photographic images ‘The Lumen Seed’ and ‘The Dingo’s Noctuary’. Recent prizes include the 2026 Marion Halligan Award, 2020 Blake Prize for Poetry and the 2023 Sunshine Coast Art Prize.

“Off the South Coast, where Christmas tourist traffic threads the Kings Highway, and stops for no reason, not for bird or fallen roo-the ocean gathers up Brendan, at the edge of water, remakes his shattered hind leg and broken tail, his heard, the shock of it all, his mother lost in the night scrub and the wall of lights that bore down. And the morning will lift him up like mountains.”: These cameraless photographic works are the result of genuine collaboration with the landscape. They are literally constructed from light, earth and flesh. I have largely invented this process, which involves arranging blood, clay, sticks, leaves, seeds, resin, ochres, etc., with large or small cadavers, on light-sensitised paper. Exposed 24 to 36 hours, while the sun arches east to west, fibre papers produce surprising arrays of colour. This amalgam of sun printing and chemigram is further augmented by layering cliche-verre plates, coated with resists of wax or paint, scratched with wire to create lines. During the period of exposure I liberally draw on the prints using whatever is at hand, including blood and decomposition chemistry, photochemicals and ordinary ink/paint.