Renée Estée has won the 2026 MA Art Prize, a $25,000 acquisitive award for an early-career artist showing at Sydney Contemporary. Her winning work is the diptych Empty Nests (we all wait for someone), shown with COMA, Sydney. It will join the MA Financial Group corporate art collection.

Estée is an Australian painter based between New York and Melbourne. Her practice works with myth-making and the rituals of mourning, celebration and commemoration. Announced on 26 August, the prize was selected by a panel of Andrew Martin and Amelia Hill of MA Financial Group, Jarrod Rawlins of MONA, Sue Cato AM, and Alison Kubler, editor-in-chief of VAULT and panel chair.

The other four finalists were Alex Walker, Binygurr Wirrpanda, Jackson Farley and Rebecca Diele. This was the prize’s fourth year.