Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is delighted to announce the upcoming 2027 Walters Prize finalists, New Zealand’s leading contemporary art award.
Held every three years, the Prize culminates in a major exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki opening in March 2027, with the winner to be selected in mid-2027 by an esteemed international judge invited to Aotearoa to view the works in person.
The 2027 finalists are:
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Edith Amituanai (born 1980, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland), a New Zealand-born Samoan lens-based artist, nominated for Vaimoe, 2024, first exhibited in Edith Amituanai and Sione Tuívailala Monū: Toloa Tales, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna Waiwhetū
, 2024, which marks a recent shift into moving image while continuing the lucid and generous enquiry that has defined her practice for more than two decades.
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Richard Frater (born 1984, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington), now based in Berlin, nominated for Nicky’s conversion (2024), a work centred on the rehearsal of a sermon by an Anglican priest, exploring the tension between interior identity and external belief structures.
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Ammon Ngakuru (born 1993, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland), nominated for Three Scenes, commissioned for Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2025, a work that responds to the Gallery’s outdoor terrace and Albert Park with the elegant restraint that characterises his practice.
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Sorawit Songsataya (born 1986, Chiang Mai, Thailand), a Thai-New Zealand artist based in Bangkok, nominated for the exhibition Fibrous Soul, presented at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 2024, noted for its exploration of accumulation, regeneration and transformation.
