Patron and Judges
Jade Oakley – Patron
and Judge
Ravenswood Alumni Jade Oakley is an artist who creates works that connect communities to their environment.
Jade has worked as a public artist for more than 15 years, making sculptures that explore nature and provide moments of reflection and discovery in the urban environment. Jade creates delicate, joyful artworks in her studio practice, which are adapted to become enduring public artworks. Jade is intimately involved in the process, collaborating with architects, designers and fabricators to transform the artwork made with her own hands into large-scale sculptures through sophisticated, innovative fabrication processes, without losing the ‘magic’ of the original work.
Jennifer Turpin – Judge
Jennifer Turpin, a Ravenswood Alumni, is an environmental artist who has created award-winning public domain artworks at the interface of art, science, nature and the built environment for more than 30 years.
Her environmental projects are both permanent and temporary and often involve the extensive participation of local communities. The participatory projects are highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted and incorporate educative as well as art outcomes.
Jennifer and the Turpin + Crawford Studio team work with scientists, engineers and specialist designers and fabricators to realise their innovative sculptural projects. Jennifer has participated in numerous public domain design teams in Australia and internationally in the roles of artist, curator and cultural planner.
Kathryn Hendy-Ekers – Judge
Ravenswood Alumni Kathryn Hendy-Ekers is the Visual Arts Curriculum Manager at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, responsible for the Visual Arts and Media curriculums from Foundation to Year 12.
Kathryn is an experienced educator, with teaching experience in primary and secondary schools in Victoria, interstate and in south-east Asia.
She has an interest in the relationships between curriculum and the arts industry through teaching and learning in art galleries and museums, and is also interested in the role of artists working in schools.
Kathryn completed a PhD, researching the relationship between Visual Arts education and learning programs in contemporary art museums.
Kathryn Minkley – Judge
Kathryn Minkley is a visual arts practitioner, educator and the Head of Visual Arts at Ravenswood School for Girls.
Kathryn qualified with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the former Alexander Mackie College of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Secondary Education (Visual Arts) from the University of Technology Sydney.
She is an experienced educator and artist and has a passion for Australian contemporary Indigenous art. Kathryn believes in the importance of creativity and for today’s students to develop an understanding of diverse cultures through visual arts.
Monica Rani Rudhar –
Guest Judge
Monica Rani Rudhar is an artist based on Gadigal land, working across sculpture, video, and performance. Her practice explores longing and loss tied to cultural identity, drawing on intergenerational family stories to imagine alternate futures. Born to Indian and Romanian migrant parents, Rani Rudhar examines cultural conformity, commodification, and essentialization within a settler colonial context. Through an auto-ethnographic lens, she reclaims fragmented oral histories to restore familial rituals and resist cultural erasure.
Rani Rudhar graduated from a Bachelor of Arts Honors, First Class, UNSW Art & Design, and has exhibition across Australia and internationally. Her work is held in major public and private collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Artbank, and Blacktown Arts. She has also completed significant commissions for Casula Powerhouse and the Powerhouse Museum. Recent accolades include the 2023 Gosford Emerging Art Prize, the 2025 acquisitive Blacktown City Art Prize, and winner of the 2026 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize.