Apr 2, 2026

Each year, Bloom offers a vital moment to experience and appreciate the vision of the next generation of artists and a chance to encounter emerging voices as they begin to shape, challenge, and expand contemporary practice.
Held this past February, Bloom 2026 brought together an exciting and diverse cohort of graduates, capturing the energy, experimentation, and fresh perspective that only new artists can bring. For audiences, it offered an early glimpse into the creatives who will help define the future of Australian art.
This year’s exhibition featured 2025 graduates from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and RMIT University, presenting a dynamic cross-section of emerging talent. From bold conceptual explorations to refined material practices, the exhibition reflected the breadth and ambition of contemporary art education in Australia today.

More than an exhibition, Bloom continues to be an essential platform – one that supports young artists as they step into the professional sphere. It creates space for connection, introducing these practices to collectors, curators, and the wider community, while fostering meaningful dialogue around new work.
A highlight of the opening night was the announcement of the Bloom Prize, awarding two outstanding graduate artists with 12 months of representation within the West End Art Space stable as well as a free solo exhibition – a significant step forward in nurturing their artistic careers.
We were delighted to welcome guest judge Anna Gowers, founder of Art Matters, who joined us to present the postgraduate artists and select this year’s recipients. With a career spanning design, education, consulting, and strategy, Anna continues to champion artists and foster deeper engagement with contemporary art through a lens of curiosity, confidence, and connection.

Announcing the Bloom 2025 Winners
We are proud to announce Hartley Snape and Virginia Guest as the recipients of the Bloom 2026 Graduate Prize.
Selected for the strength and distinction of their practices, both artists have been awarded 12 months of gallery representation, with fully supported solo exhibitions at West End Art Space – an exciting and significant milestone in their careers.

Hartley Snape
Hartley Snape is a Sydney/Eora-born, Melbourne/Naarm-based artist whose path to painting has been shaped by a rich and unconventional personal history. Having spent formative years in rural Japan after his family relocated there as Christian missionaries, Hartley developed a perspective deeply attuned to displacement, observation, and introspection.
Initially pursuing Philosophy and Creative Writing in Adelaide, he later moved to Melbourne and began painting as a means of entering formal art education. He completed his Fine Art degree at RMIT University in 2025, majoring in painting, where he refined both his conceptual and technical approach, working primarily with traditional oil on canvas.
Hartley’s practice explores themes of time, ambiguity, perception, and the unstable frameworks through which we interpret the world. His paintings are often fractured, balancing structure and disruption and creating a sense of movement and stillness that resonates from the picture plane. Despite the conceptual depth of his work, there remains a strong connection to the physical body, suggesting alternative ways of seeing and experiencing.
His distinctive voice emerges through an amalgamation of readings, sensations, emotions, and lived experiences – forming a practice that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply felt.
“PROFESSIONAL DILETTANTISM… I am a person who is there and not there because I am dreaming a lot… What are our assumptions? SYNTAX. Language is a parachute that won’t open…”

Virginia Guest
Virginia Guest is recognised for her strength of material exploration and the intentionality embedded within her process. As one of this year’s Bloom winners, she has been awarded 12 months of gallery representation, alongside a fully supported solo exhibition at West End Art Space.
Her practice moves fluidly between collage, ceramics, and painting; each medium informing the next in a process that is both iterative and deeply considered: “My process begins with textured collages, which are distilled from drawings and photographs. These simplified compositions are pressed into clay forms, onto which I layer oxides, underglazes and glazes, brushing and rubbing them back repeatedly.”
These abstracted references are translated into oil paintings. Built through multiple layers, the surface becomes both foundation and veil, partially erased, disrupted, but never totally removed. I intentionally break the surface with fine metal tools, scraping and revealing colour and texture beneath, echoing natural processes of erosion, exposure, and transformation. The tension between application and removal is essential, preserving the physicality of oil paint while allowing the substrate to remain active and visible.
Each group of artworks is an extension of the thinking behind the individual work, a register of the history of its making. Across mediums, recurring compositional threads provide a connective language, enhancing the dialogue between works. The grouping and curation of the pieces is deliberate, extending the conceptual framework of my practice.”
Virginia’s work is defined by this balance of control and disruption – where surfaces hold memory, and process becomes both method and meaning.

The Artists of Bloom 2025

Annabelle Gallon, Alexi Cordes, Hartley Snape, Jack Snow-Viener, Journey Kelly, Mila Medic, Soyo Paek, and Virginia Guest.

Together, their works formed a vibrant and engaging exhibition – one that celebrated not only individual practices, but the collective momentum of a new generation.
As Bloom continues to evolve, it remains a cornerstone of West End Art Space’s commitment to supporting emerging artists. The 2026 exhibition reaffirmed the importance of creating platforms where new voices are not only seen, but actively championed.
We look forward to following the journeys of these artists and to welcoming the next wave of emerging talent in the years to come.