SMY

THE LESTER PRIZE: 2026 YOUTH AWARDS FINALISTS⁠⁠

Ella Bihrenbrodt (WA) • Kayla Braimbridge (WA) • Idelia Cao (NSW) • Raadin Ebadi (WA) • Billy Ferguson (QLD) • Hephzibah Fraser (VIC) • Celine Gan (WA) • Wenya Gao (VIC) • Indigo Gilmour (WA) • Callum Goh (WA) • Charlotte Grace (WA) • Natali Jaros (WA) • Mathilda Meyers (WA) • Bella Mihyo (WA) • Laura Niu (WA) • Lacey Pohle (QLD) • Sanuthi Rathnayake (WA) • Jolie Reutens (WA) • Bailey Riemann (WA) • Tasha Rogoff (NSW) • Mila Sander (WA) • Miriam Sekendy (WA) • Naomi Symonds (WA) • Jinyu Wang (WA) • Emma Yuqian Wang (NSW) • Seneja Willamune (WA) • Yu-Xin Wong (WA) • Chloe Yin (VIC) • Zixi Zhao (VIC) • Ethan Zheng (VIC)

We would also like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to everyone who entered the 2026 Youth Awards. It takes great courage and dedication to share your work, and we are excited to see what the future holds for each of you. You can view this year’s Finalists in full at https://bit.ly/youth-awards-finalists

⁠⁠The Lester Prize for Portraiture's Youth Awards exhibition runs from Friday 24 April to Sunday 19 July in the Old Gaol building at the WA Museum Boola Bardip in the City of Perth.

To celebrate this Monday 8 March, we're sharing stories of inspirational women who do incredible work within our City!

This is Marite Norris, born and raised in Australia.

Marite is a mixed media artist (since 2003) who has held exhibitions in Perth and Hong Kong. She is also a writer and has had poetry printed in the literary magazine published at UWA.

Marite is the director of The Art Space Collective in Scarborough (established 2015) - an inspired and innovative community arts hub - bringing together artists and creatives for art sessions, exhibitions and shared work studios. Holding art workshops for kids, adults and people of all abilities creates an inclusive community. Marite has worked with the State Government and the City of Stirling on multiple projects over the past six years to deliver art activations and public events.

The most recent project Marite worked on was Colour Warp for the 2021 Fringe Festival - a lockdown-inspired painting extravaganza in response to COVID-19. It was a vibrant painting project extending far beyond the borders of traditional canvas, recognising the significant messages of hope in the rainbows that people chalked onto driveways and taped to windows. Art Space Collective also hosted workshops and an exhibition of paintings and drawings, both of which won FRINGE WORLD awards.

Marite's inspiration are her children. On 17 July, 2014, the adored and beloved meaning of her existence, her children, Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin, were aboard flight MH17, that was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. They were in the care of her father Nick Norris. The passenger jet, flying over the Ukraine, was hit by a BUK missile; since proven to have been fired by Russian-backed separatists. There were no survivors.

The consequences were immense. The media were relentless. Her life was shattered - but that word doesn’t even begin to describe the total devastation. All her work is dedicated to her children, including Violet, her youngest who was born two years after ‘their world ended.’

In addition to the art she creates and the community she brings together, her main achievement lies in finding her own voice after tragedy.
A voice that can impart stories of hope.
A voice that can open up conversations about the unspeakable - ‘death'.
A voice that can share my own story in order that other people may feel less isolated, or less alone.

To provide context to these achievements, it’s important to recognise the realities that grief and tragedy can present in everyday life. Pain within the reality of grief requires management, endurance and resilience. Although the pain can become less raw, debilitating grief still comes in waves and can call at any time. Marite often needs to summon deep reservoirs of self-awareness, hopefulness and empathy in order to manage tasks.

Trying to discover tiny moments of happiness in each day is important on the grief journey. Often these moments are few and fleeting, but a smile from a stranger or noticing a dew drop on a leaf first thing in the morning can be enough to help you realise true simple beauty, if you can be present enough to appreciate it.

To Marite, this year's theme is about choice.

She believes we are responsible for our own feelings, thoughts and actions. She chooses to not allow her tragedy to define her.

Showing compassion for other people not only helps them, but also helps her find moments of contentment. asks her to stand up and speak openly and from her heart about the adversity she's faced with the loss of her kids and her perseverance.

"It’s not easy to speak about the difficulties and hurdles, but it’s important to show they can be overcome." She hopes by doing so, other women may see they can rise above challenges with determination, resilience and emotional intelligence. She hopes other people will be encouraged to conquer their own problems.

In a world that seems to set high value on an idea of ‘perfection’ that doesn’t really exist, she wants to demonstrate it’s more than ok to be different, damaged, imperfect.

is an opportunity for Marite to write a new page in the story that speaks of hope amidst cataclysmic tragedy. She hopes to encourage and uplift women creatives to be themselves, to speak their truth, in their own way.

"Perhaps my thoughts can inspire people to not be defined by their past."

📷 Katharyn Quinn, 2021