"It's a feeling you will never forget."
Dr Shannon Brett, guest curator of the 2026 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, delivered that message to artists on Larrakia Country in Darwin on Friday night.
More than a thousand people gathered on the grass outside the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory for a night of awards, performances and speeches.
Dr Brett knows firsthand what it means to win.
The Wakka Wakka, Butchulla and Gooreng Gooreng artist won the Telstra Work on Paper Award in 2024 and returned this year as guest curator of Australia's longest-running Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art awards.
"As I consider the priorities of First Nations artists and our practices, I'm sure we can all agree that the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards is the big one," Dr Brett told the crowd.
"It's the award and exhibition we all aspire to be part of, and I'm so extremely happy for each of our winners tonight."
Marri Ngarr artist Dr Ryan Presley claimed Australian Indigenous art's richest individual prize.
The Northern Territory-born artist took home the $100,000 Telstra Art Award for Our lifestyle of tranquillity undisturbed 2026, an oil painting that uses European Renaissance techniques to examine power, memory and the representation of Aboriginal people.
Dr Brett said winning NATSIAA stays with artists long after the ceremony.
"To experience this feeling of being a winning artist of your chosen category, and of course as an overall winner, is something NATSIAA artists will always carry," she said.
"I'm proud to say that I know that feeling too, having once succeeded here as a category winner."
Six other categories recognised artists from across Australia for works in painting, bark, paper, sculpture and multimedia, highlighting the breadth of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.
Western Aranda artist Vanessa Inkamala received the $15,000 Telstra General Painting Award for Arrkurla Nukala / Lyaarta Ntema 2026.
Ms Inkamala paints on recycled road signs, using industrial materials to depict Country around Mparntwe and Tjoritja. Her work brings together memories of landscape with the technologies and infrastructure now shaping it.
The Telstra Bark Painting Award went to Miwatj artist Barayuwa Munuŋgurr for The hidden reef at Yarrinya 2025.
The work draws on ancestral knowledge of Yarrinya and the story of Mirinyuŋu, using ochre and intricate miny'tji to carry Yolŋu knowledge through bark painting.
Larrakia, KarraJarri and Wardaman artist Jenna Mayilema Lee won the Telstra Work on Paper Award for Taking back taken 2026.
The work features six danala, or dillybags, made from maps produced by the British Museum. Material once used for collecting and removing Indigenous cultural objects becomes a vessel for cultural reclamation.
Yolŋu artist Napuwarri MarYolŋu artist Napuwarri Marawili received the Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award for Djambatj - Deadly hunter 2025, two carved herons that carry knowledge of hunting, Country and Yolŋu cultural practice.ist Award went to Guruwuy Murrinyina for Prismatic arc 2026, a hollow pole work connected to the Rainbow Serpent and honouring knowledge passed down through her late mother.
Tiwi artist Colin Heenan-Puruntatameri won the Telstra Multimedia Award for Ngirramini Ngini Amparruwu 2026, which combines video, dance, song and fighting sticks to bring Tiwi cultural practice into a contemporary multimedia form.
The seven winners continue a tradition that began more than four decades ago.
MAGNT launched the National Aboriginal Art Award in 1984, as Aboriginal community-controlled art centres grew in number and prominence across remote Australia.
The awards became the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards when Telstra joined as principal partner in 1992. Today, the prize pool totals $190,000 and brings together artists from diverse Countries, traditions and mediums in Darwin.
Dr Brett says NATSIAA's significance always returns to the artists.
"To experience this feeling of being a winning artist of your chosen category, and of course as an overall winner, is something NATSIAA artists will always carry," she said.
"It's a feeling you will never forget."
Note: the author travelled to Darwin courtesy of Telstra.
