Meet the Judging Panel
We are delighted to introduce this team of wonderful people who will be curating and judging the Great Barrier Reef Festival Art Exhibition for 2024.

Judge
Lauren Turton
Lauren Turton is the Curator at Artspace Mackay responsible for overseeing management of the gallery exhibition program and art collection. After completing a Masters of Arts Administration (Curating and Cultural Leadership) at the University of New South Wales with a focus thesis on regional arts programming, in 2017 Lauren relocated to Mackay for the role of Assistant Curator, moving into a senior curatorial role in 2019.
Having grown up in a regional area, one of Lauren’s key career goals is to strengthen cultural communities and ensure galleries are accessible for all audiences throughout Australia. Lauren brings knowledge of both metropolitan and regional artists and audiences to Mackay having worked in one of Australia’s oldest commercial art galleries in Sydney, as well spending time in a research student role at the Australian Council for the Arts. Lauren is currently on the Board of Crossroad Arts, Mackay and has been the judge for numerous regional art prizes including in 2023, the John Villiers Outback Arts Prize at the Waltzing Matilda Art Gallery in Winton QLD.

Curator
Bonney Bombach
Graduating from RMIT in 1975, for over 40 years Bonney worked as a visual artist (two and three dimensionally) and art educator exhibiting regionally, nationally, and internationally with over thirty solo exhibitions. Credited with many prizes and awards she is represented in public and private collections including Queensland Art Gallery, Artbank and other public collections in Australia, USA and Vietnam. She has been an exhibition judge and has extensive teaching experience including Flying Arts Inc. and other community workshops in Victoria, NSW and Queensland as well as involvement in collaborative and exchange projects in Australia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Artist-in-residencies in schools in Victoria and Queensland and State Government public art commissions for sculptural works at the Airlie Beach Lagoon, Mackay Courthouse and Burdekin Shire Council also played a significant part in her career.
In recent years she has focussed on writing.

Curator
Sandy Guy
Experienced arts educator and art coordinator. Currently Lead Visual Arts Educator at TAFE Queensland, Townsville.
With a strong passion facilitating and developing personal development programs; I strive to inspire others to use the arts as a means to discover themselves and their world.
My artworks convey my surrounding landscapes and the people. Growing up on a large property and now living on the coast in tropical North Queensland, imagery of the NQ country and coastal lifestyle flood my creative works. Commonly, I combine my love of painting and printmaking; creating my own stencils and implementing them in my work.

Curator
Cr Jan Clifford, OAM
Cr Jan Clifford has joined the panel as a representative of Whitsundays Regional Council, sponsor of the Acquisitive Art Prize. With a strong passion for supporting arts in the Whitsundays, Cr Clifford has been a dedicated advocate for exhibitions. We are delighted to welcome her to the panel.