B. 1960 

Wendy Sharpe represents one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. Her work observes and celebrates the human condition, crossing themes including women’s health, asylum seekers and the performing arts, having been an artist in residence at Circus Oz and producing commissions for The Australian Ballet and the Australian Opera. 

Sharpe came to notoriety when she won the Archibald prize in 1996 with a self-portrait, a first for a female artist. Since then, she has won the Sulman and Portia Geach Memorial Prize (twice) and been a finalist in the Sulman (thirteen times) and Archibald prizes (eight times). In 1999 she was posted to East Timor as the first female official war artist since the Second World War and in 2024, was honoured with a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South. 

Exuberant, bold and distinctive, Sharpe’s work represents a sumptuous journey through creativity, identity and life itself.