The Dampier Community Association (DCA) has been proudly presenting the Dampier Art Awards since their humble beginnings in 2010. Whilst celebrating local talent, these Awards also aim to encourage and support our new, emerging and established artists to pursue art and build their artistic confidence. This annual event has developed to become an anticipated fixture on the local community arts calendar, each year proving more popular than the last. With eight different artwork categories to choose from, entry is open exclusively to adults, and youth aged between 14-18, residing within the City of Karratha area.

A different theme is chosen for each Dampier Art Awards, encouraging local artists to create visual works that will intrigue their audience. Often Pilbara based, past themes have included: By the Sea; From Little Things Big Things Grow; Colour My Life; Home is Where the Heart is; Ancient Land, Changing Town; Under the Sun; Red Hot Town; 2020 Vision; The Other Side; A Moment in Time; and Pure.

The theme for the 2024 Dampier Art Awards is ‘No Boundaries’. Creativity really has no boundaries, with no rules on what art is and is not, the possibilities are endless! What do you imagine when you think of ‘No Boundaries’? We are excited to see our artists unique interpretation of this theme and how they will capture this. Although artists are only required to portray ‘No Boundaries’ if entering the ‘Theme’ category, we hope this year’s theme will inspire all our entrants!

Our judge this year is Perth based artist, Kate Leslie. With a passion for working with people and supporting artists of all abilities, Kate has worked as a facilitator, mentor, art consultant and curator. Kate has the unenviable task of choosing the winner and highly commended for each of the eight artwork categories. A People’s Choice Award will be decided by a public vote, open to visitors to the Main Exhibition, or via the online Virtual Art Awards.

Last year’s event received 117 pieces submitted by 80 different local artists, with an amazing standard of work once again. Although it is not a requirement to offer work for sale, almost a third  of the 95 available pieces were sold. The Main Exhibition flowed through both the Lesser and Main Community Halls, receiving over 600 visitors. This was followed by a Winners Exhibition at the Dampier Community Hub foyer. An online Virtual Art Awards extended the reach of this event to those who could not visit in person, with over 1000 people able to watch the video, view the artwork gallery and vote for their favourite piece in the People’s Choice Award.

The Dampier Art Awards are an important local grass roots cultural event. To enable us to manage this event, from inception to exhibition, the DCA relies heavily on support from our community members, local business sponsors and our major sponsor, the City of Karratha. For this year’s event we are once again grateful for the support of our artists, judge, volunteers, visitors and many sponsors, who all contribute to making the Dampier Art Awards the highly anticipated and successful local art exhibition that it is.