Exhibition Selection Panel and Curation
Competition Judging Panel
Jen Braithwaite
Jen holds a Degree in Fine Arts/Visual Culture and works across painting, textiles and sculpture. Her practice explores Australian birdlife, focusing on character, colour, fragility and connections to the natural environment. Through the use of textiles and natural materials, she creates contemporary sculptural interpretations that are tactile, expressive and strongly connected to place.
Jen has exhibited widely throughout the Moreton Bay, Brisbane and Sunshine Coast regions and continues to develop both two- and three-dimensional bodies of work.
A committed arts advocate, Jen served as President of Arts Connect Inc. for five years and has played a key role in major arts initiatives including exhibitions, Open Studios Sunshine Coast and Sculpture on the Edge at Flaxton Gardens.
With a professional background in senior administration, procurement and event coordination, Jen brings extensive experience in managing exhibitions, artists and volunteers. Her combined expertise as an artist, organiser and curator informs her collaborative approach to supporting artists and strengthening the cultural community.
Jo Duke
Director of the Caloundra Regional Gallery for Sunshine Coast Council.
Janna Pameijer
Janna’s career in the arts spans more than four decades. After completing a Degree in Fine Art with a major in ceramics in 1978, she established a successful Brisbane studio and developed an innovative sculpture-building technique that enables large-scale clay works to be created without armatures. This method has been taught to generations of emerging and returning artists for over 45 years.
In 1981, Janna co-founded the Queensland Wildlife Artists Society and is now a Life Member in recognition of her contribution to promoting Australian wildlife as a subject for visual arts. She has travelled extensively throughout Queensland and New South Wales, tutoring clay workers and sharing her distinctive sculptural techniques.
Janna’s practice is driven by a deep observation of people and animals. As she explains, her aim is to understand the essence of her subjects and capture it in form. Working primarily in clay, she develops her sculptures before they are cast in bronze.
Her public artworks include Herd of Cows at the Obi Obi Creek bridge in Maleny, community-created Australian animal sculptures in Maleny, Dolphins in Port Stephens and Tea Gardens, NSW, and fifteen life-size sculptures created with the community of Charters Towers to mark the Federation Centenary.
Internationally, Janna has delivered workshops in Switzerland and Italy and developed interactive cultural tours in Morocco, combining artistic practice with cultural exchange and education.
Liselle Lei
Liselle Mei is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans film, writing, photography and sculpture. An honours graduate of New York University’s film school, she has built an acclaimed international career in filmmaking, with narrative films and documentaries screening at major festivals, cinemas and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Lincoln Center, Cannes Cinephiles and Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum.
Her film work has received numerous awards, including the New York Women in Film Award, Jerome Foundation Media Arts Award and Wasserman Award. Her feature documentary Love Opera won Best Feature at the Australian Screen Industry Awards and was released nationally in cinemas across Australia.
Alongside filmmaking, Liselle maintains an active practice in writing and visual arts. Her short fiction has been published in multiple anthologies, and she holds a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in screenwriting. She also received the Grand Jury Original Screenplay Prize at the Asia Pacific Film Festival.
Working across stone carving and hand-printed lith photography, Liselle explores themes of light, memory and transformation. Her work has been published in the Roma Mitica Anthology (2023), and she is a recipient of the Gordon Undy Mono Award. In 2025, she presented her first solo exhibition, Between Worlds, at Clara Street Gallery in Sydney, featuring original lith prints and sculpture.
Liselle has served on the film advisory committee of the New York Foundation for the Arts, mentored through Australia’s Women in Film and Television, and has been invited to serve as a juror for the International Emmy Awards in 2025 and 2026.
Jane Mann studied Visual Arts and Interior Design and has spent more than two decades contributing to community and creative initiatives through event management, exhibition coordination, and gallery curation.
Jane Mann
Simon Wright
Simon Wright has held public engagement, exhibition management, curatorial and executive leadership positions in private, public gallery and museum realms since 1993. As Assistant Director (Learning + Public Engagement) at QAGOMA, he currently works with a broad range of community-facing and audience-centric teams, including Public Engagement (The Children’s Art Centre, Public Programs, Member Services), Learning (Education, Group and Community Access, Volunteer Guides, Arts and Health Programming, Cultural Learning and Regional Services), QAGOMA Publishing, Copyright and Research Library, and all Design Studio outcomes incorporating Exhibition Design, Graphic Design, Workshop and Installation teams.
He has worked on 350+ exhibition projects and has been actively involved in the national arts community beyond QAGOMA, serving in various governance capacities, such as The Commissioner’s Council for Australia at the 53rd Venice Biennale and on The Institute of Modern Art Board of Directors for 10 years. In 2014 he became Founder Benefactor of the QAGOMA Foundation, and in 2017 participated in the Asialink Business Leaders program at University of Melbourne. He has a passion supporting regional arts development and community arts practice, audience engagement and participation, and is an advocate for the nexus between creativity and wellbeing.
Since 2005 he has been a guest judge or jury member for art awards around the State, including: The Premier of Queensland International Sculpture Commission, The Queensland Regional Art Awards, The 1770 Art Award, The Rio Tinto Martin Hanson Award (Gladstone Regional Art Gallery), THIESS Art Awards, Tattersall’s Art Prize, The Churchie National Emerging Artist Awards, The Blunt Edge Portrait Prize (Cairns), The Gold Coast Art + Design Awards, Chapman+Bailey Art Prize and Ocean Shores Art Awards.