Otomys is delighted to share news that Kate McKenzie Lewis has been announced as a finalist in the 2026 Len Fox Painting Award, presented by Castlemaine Art Museum.
The award is held every two years and is open to living Australian artists. It honours the impressionist E. P. Fox, and the $50,000 prize is acquisitive, so the winning painting enters the Museum’s collection. The judges look for artists who engage with colour and light and who, like Fox, look outward to the wider world.
Kate’s finalist painting is In Spring the trees wake early, oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm. She works by sitting out in the landscape, letting the sun blur her view and noticing how the light has moved since the day before. ‘There is a magic in the light. I feel the changes in the wind, and the sun shifting each day,’ she says.
The exhibition runs from 11 December 2026 to 14 March 2027 at Castlemaine Art Museum, 14 Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine. The official opening and prize announcement is on Friday 11 December from 6pm to 8pm, and the People’s Choice will be announced on 14 March 2027. Entry is free.
Congratulations Kate!
You can view Kate McKenzie Lewis’s work at Otomys 10am–5pm, Tuesday to Friday, or by appointment on Saturdays and Mondays.
