'artbeat' 2025 Finalists
Angus Bowskill - WINNER
Angus Bowskill is a digital media and printmaking artist currently completing a Bachelor of Creative Arts at Curtin University. His practice centres on abstraction and texture, using digital collage to transform found and personal imagery into visually rich, layered compositions. By removing context and focusing on aesthetic form, Angus invites viewers to engage with surface, structure, and the overlooked details of everyday life.
His finalist piece Drain (2025) is a striking example. Originating from a photograph of the drain in his own bathroom, the image has been digitally reworked into a highly textural, almost sculptural surface. Through layering, distortion and colour shifts, the ordinary becomes abstract, encouraging viewers to see beauty in the mundane.
Angus’s work challenges traditional hierarchies in visual art, focussing on the aesthetics of common objects and exploring the visual potential of digital media with a strong focus on materiality and surface.
Ava Komnick
Ava Komnick is a portrait artist whose practice centres on high realism oil painting. Since discovering her talent for portraiture in high school, Ava has developed a deep appreciation for capturing the subtle emotion and spiritual depth conveyed through facial expression, body language, and form. Her work reflects a reverence for the human figure and a fascination with light, shadow, and the intimate stories carried in each gesture.
Her finalist work, Portrait of a Man, showcases her technical skill and sensitivity to detail. Through precise brushwork and a controlled palette, Ava captures the quiet dignity of her subject with nuance and care.
Ava is drawn to themes of Christian identity and personal reflection, often exploring how faith and emotion intersect visually. Now preparing to begin her studies in Fine Arts and Psychology at UWA, Ava continues to develop a practice that is both technically refined and emotionally resonant.
Jessica Kennedy
Jessica Kennedy is currently completing her Bachelor of Creative Arts at Curtin University, majoring in Fine Arts and minoring in Illustration. Her practice is rooted in painting and driven by a deep connection to nature, often exploring themes of memory, place, and the human relationship with the environment.
Her finalist piece Skipping through the Karri (2024) captures the vivid joy and nostalgia of childhood exploration in the Boranup Karri Forest. Using oil on canvas and expressive, gestural brushwork, Jessica portrays the forest with rich colour, texture, and warmth. Her use of colour and vibrant palettes brings an emotive and almost lyrical quality to the landscape.
Jessica’s work reflects a sincere desire to convey the beauty and emotional resonance of the natural world. Her artistic voice is heartfelt, and ever-evolving as she continues to experiment with scale, composition, and storytelling.
Kathleen Clifton
Kathleen Clifton is a 17-year-old artist based between Forrestfield and Broome, Western Australia. A proud Nyikina, Kokatha, Njamal, and Nyul Nyul woman, Kathleen’s paintings reflect a deep connection to family, Country, and coastal life. Her artistic journey is grounded in collaboration, painting alongside her mother and grandmother in a shared, intergenerational practice.
Her finalist piece, Whale Sharks Swimming, is a vibrant acrylic work celebrating the grace and power of the whale shark, an animal that holds special meaning for Kathleen. Spanning two metres in width, the piece captures the flowing, dreamlike movement of these creatures, set against a backdrop inspired by her memories of growing up barefoot by the Kimberley coast.
Kathleen’s art has already gained national attention, with works featured at PICA’s Revealed exhibition, Yagan Square, and the Broome Markets. Her work radiates joy, reverence, and a powerful sense of place rooted in lived experience and cultural strength.
Noa Williams
Noa Williams is a multidisciplinary artist currently studying at the University of Western Australia. His work explores memory, materiality, and authorship through layered, experimental printmaking. Drawing on found objects, photography, and historical fragments, Noa’s process-based practice reveals a quiet reverence for stories that don’t belong to him, but still speak.
His finalist work, HOLIDAY=72 (Aunty Sheila), is a poetic collection of 16 mono-ink and solvent-transfer prints created from altered postcards sent in the 1970s. These deeply textural, ephemeral works repurpose found materials, visual and written, to examine how memories are recorded, preserved, and reinterpreted. Each piece offers a window into a stranger’s travels, repurposed as contemporary reflections on nostalgia and dislocation.
Through ink, image, and absence, Noa’s work explores what is lost, remembered, and reimagined across generations. His sensitive, conceptual approach makes space for the personal and the forgotten, offering a compelling perspective within contemporary printmaking.
'artbeat' Sponsors
The winner of artbeat 2025 - ANGUS BOWSKILL will receive a 12-month mentorship with Yallingup Galleries, designed to boost their professional art career. This includes gallery representation, business and career coaching, mentorship with acclaimed artists, Master Printmaker - Leon Pericles and Archibald Finalist - Christophe Domergue and sessions with Positive Psychology Coach, Louise Foddy.
We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of our 'artbeat' 2025 sponsors. Their contributions help nurture the next generation of Western Australian artists by providing vital opportunities for growth, visibility, and mentorship.
A sincere thank you to TREEhouse for sponsoring the $1,000 Second Prize awarded to KATHLEEN CLIFTON, and to Happs Pottery, who have generously contributed a $500 Third Prize along with $500 in ceramics classes awarded to AVA KOMNICK.
Thank you to Hilton Garden Inn, Busselton for the Judge’s Choice Award, which includes a one-night stay and post-exhibition artwork display, awarded to JESSICA KENNEDY.
We also thank Margaret River Region Open Studios for the Open Studios Pathway Award, offering NOA WILLIAMS free entry into Open Studios 2026.
Thank you to the City of Busselton for their continued support of the arts.