We are so proud to share that artist Lori Pensini has been announced as the winner of the 2024 Portia Geach Memorial Prize, for her poignant artwork "Conversations #3" - Oil on raw linen - 52 x 80 cm
This is Australia's most prestigious art prize for portraiture by women artists, and Lori Pensini is the second Western Australian female artist to win this award, with the first being Mary Moore in 2001.

On show until 15 December at the NATIONAL TRUST SH ERVIN GALLERY Sydney NSW.

ARTIST STATEMENT: "This work is continuum of a series I’m exploring around conversations with animals and understanding animal decision making for conservation. It draws from memories and encounters with our unique wildlife and my biophilic nature to connect with nature and other forms of life.

Animals make decisions based on their environmental and social context. The rate at which we are altering the natural systems through the impact of habitat loss and degradation has set about critical changes in that context that ultimately impacts species populations and diversity. Such decline in biodiversity threatens our basically ecological cycles and has a direct impact on our own health. ‘Conversation’s 3# opens up dialogue around our engagement with animals, the differences in the way we perceive and experience the same world and how we can balance the different realities to redevelop more sustainable models moving forward."

The judges wrote: “The conversation #3" is a beautifully composed painting that delivers, with exceptional skill, an alluring sense of connection between human and animal subjects. The painting sensitively conveys the artist’s desire to explore knowledge systems of the non-human world, suggesting how these might influence an understanding our environments as cohabited spaces. The intimacy of this shared portrait may reflect the artist’s own experience, but also poses a timely and larger question of how we view the world at a time of human-made environmental crisis."