Natasha Walsh is a finalist in the 2025 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW with her work chrysanthemum tea by the window.
This work by Natasha Walsh blends memories of sites that she visits to escape and ‘feel hidden and lost’ in her home town of Sydney. In the foreground, a pot of chrysanthemum and goji berry tea rests on a table at the tea house at White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale, while in the background, a lush scene from Wendy Whiteley’s ‘Secret Garden’ in Quiberee, or Lavender Bay, is seen through a window.
‘This painting creates an imaginary place that is half remembered, half dream,’ Walsh says. ‘The window plays with the idea that painting itself is an imaginary window. A window that looks at the outside world through the inner world of the human mind.’
The artist’s unique painting methods have been developed through extensive research and experimentation. She applies handmade paint pigments onto sheets of copper to create alchemical works that transform over time.
Walsh won the 2018 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship at the age of 24. She is a first-time Wynne finalist and eight-time Archibald finalist in 2025.
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