Paul Knight wins the 2026 National Photography Prize at MAMA Albury

Ettalong based artist Paul Knight has been awarded the 2026 National Photography Prize for Chamber Music, 2009-, a compelling body of work exploring intimacy, gentleness, and the social structures that shape closeness.

Murray Art Museum Albury has announced Paul Knight as the winner of the 2026 National Photography Prize. The $40,000 acquisitive award, presented by the MAMA Art Foundation, was announced at MAMA Albury on Saturday 8 August 2026.

Knight received the award for Chamber Music, 2009-, comprising 14 photographs.

Knight’s ongoing series documents the domestic life he shares with his partner Peter. Through portraiture and still life, Knight's prints balance intention and chance and create a sustained meditation on intimacy as a counterpoint to power and hierarchy. The work reflects on how relationships are shaped and communicated through everyday life.

Announcing the winner, Judge Natasha Bullock, Senior Curator, Photography, National Gallery Victoria said “The workreally captures the freedom with which artists are working today. Photography can be intimate, it can be highly conceptual, or technically experimental and it can embrace all of the above. What’s exciting is the way these finalists are bringing all of these possibilities together, and finding new ways to make us look and see.

MAMA Director/CEO Blair French said the National Photography Prize continued MAMA’s longstanding commitment to Australian photography.

“The National Photography Prize brings together artists working across a range of photographic technologies, drawing attention to changing relationships between images, the worlds they depict and the ideas they generate. MAMA received a record number of entries to the National Photography Prize this year and the resulting exhibition beautifully encapsulates the depth of work being made across the country. Paul Knight, recipient of the Audray Banfield Award, brings photography in close as part of the intimate, everyday life of the artist, and through photography inviting audiences into this world of observation and memory. Paul’s commitment to photographic practice stretches back decades and we are delighted to be able to bring a selection of his work into the MAMA Collection through this award. Morgan Hogg, recipient of the John and Margaret Baker Fellowship for an emerging artist has made a compelling moving image work, that celebrates relationships in the Moana between land, water and cultures; between tradition, spirituality, storytelling and contemporary life; between family and community; and across generations. It’s an important work to present within the National Photography Prize and recognition of a long and urgent art career ahead.”

Knight’s ongoing series documents the domestic life he shares with his partner Peter. Through portraiture and still life, Knight's prints balance intention and chance and create a sustained meditation on intimacy as a counterpoint to power and hierarchy. The work reflects on how relationships are shaped and communicated through everyday life.

The winning work will enter the MAMA collection, continuing the museum’s significant commitment to collecting and presenting Australian photography.

Additional award

The $5,000 John and Margaret Baker Memorial Fellowship for an emerging artist was awarded to Morgan Hogg for Silver tongues, 2025

The 2026 finalists

The 2026 National Photography Prize exhibition presents work by 12 finalists:

Alana Hunt, Alex Walker, Amalia Lindo, Arlo Mountford, David Stephenson, JD Reforma, Lisa Stonham, Marian Tubbs, Morgan Hogg, Nathanael Edwards, Paul Knight, and Sarah Rhodes.

Selected from 333 entries from across Australia, the exhibition reflects the breadth of contemporary photographic practice, encompassing portraiture, landscape, experimental, digital and expanded photographic practices.

The National Photography Prize is one of MAMA’s major recurring exhibitions and celebrates artists who are extending the possibilities of photography in Australia.

Media contact

Emily Doig
Engagement Manager
MAMA, Murray Art Museum Albury
Phone: 0457 224 594
Email: emily.doig@alburycity.nsw.gov.au

Interview opportunities are available with:

• Paul Knight, 2026 National Photography Prize Winner
• Blair French, MAMA Director/CEO