Naomi Hobson

Naomi Hobson is one of the leading Aboriginal artists of the current generation. She works across painting, photography and ceramics. 

Of Southern Kaantju heritage, she lives in the remote community of Coen, Cape York, Far North Queensland, where her grandfather was born. Coen is a tiny township of some 300 people at the end of the McIlwraith Ranges, on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula, set in a terrain of rainforest, open wooded country and abundant river systems. Since European settlement the Aboriginal peoples of this area have maintained a connection to their country often through working on pastoral properties. 

Hobson’s multi-disciplinary oeuvre is principally concerned with documenting this land, and the life and culture of her community, in its navigation of traditional norms and modern modes. 

Hobson is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. In 2025, she was awarded the Telstra Work on Paper Award, one of the most prestigious First Nations art prizes in Australia. While in 2022, she received the Geelong Art Prize for her work Sand Dunes on the Coast. She has also been a finalist in numerous significant awards, including the Wynne Prize (2023), National Works on Paper Prize (2024), Hadley’s Art Prize (2024), Len Fox Painting Award (2024), Alice Prize (2020, 2016), Ravenswood Art Prize (2023, 2021), and the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2023). In 2023, she also received an Honourable Mention in the Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac Photography Award in Paris.

Her work has been widely exhibited, including in Photo 22: Being Human, part of the Australian International Festival of Photography in Melbourne, and in the prestigious Tarnanthi exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2020. Internationally, she has presented solo exhibitions at the Horniman Museum and the V&A in London.

Hobson’s work is held in major public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory; Shepparton Art Museum; Bendigo Art Gallery; HOTA (Home of the Arts); and Cairns Art Gallery.