Key dates for 2025
| 23 April to 20 August | Visual Art Awards submissions open |
| 31 May to 31 August | Central exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art celebrating the 2024 Excellence Award winners |
16 July to 12 September
| Visual Art In Residence submissions open |
| 23 July | Award online information session for teachers |
September to November
| Regional exhibitions held across Queensland |
13 and 21 November
| In Residence online information sessions |
25 to 27 November
| In Residence 3-day residency held in Brisbane |
Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art: Online information session for teachers
An online information session for teachers will be held Wednesday 23 July 2025. Hosted by the Department of Education, with guest speakers from the arts industry and Queensland visual art teaching community, the session will cover topics including:
- understanding the Visual Art Awards program, award categories and guidelines
- tips for selecting and refining artwork details for submissions
- techniques to effectively photograph artwork and making it display ready
- question and answer session to address any specific questions about the submission process.
For more information or to register to attend the event, please contact artawards@qed.qld.gov.au.
How to enter
Submissions for the 2025 Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art are open from 23 April to 20 August 2025.
Head to the
submissions portal and create a 2025 teacher account. Please download the
'How to' guide for the Visual Art submissions portal to assist you with your submission.
Submissions for Visual Art In Residence 2025 will open in July 2025. For more information on how to enter, visit the
In Residence page.
Submission process
Schools must download and read the 2025 submission guidelines booklet carefully before submitting into the awards. The booklet contains information on all elements of the program and what is expected of schools and students.
Before finalising the submission, the submitting teacher will be asked to tick a box acknowledging their understanding and acceptance of the program’s terms and conditions.
Project consent form
All students participating in the awards program are required to complete a 2025 Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Art project consent form.
Schools will be required to upload completed forms via the submission portal. Submissions cannot be completed without this.
Ministerial consent form
All students participating in the awards program are encouraged to complete a 2025 ministerial consent form.
Submit
Once the submitting teacher, student and their parent/guardian have read the submission guidelines and have received the student’s completed project consent form(s), visit the submission portal to submit your award application.
Submission guidelines
- All Queensland state and non-state schools offering senior visual art can submit up to 4 students' artworks—including students studying visual arts through Visual Arts in Practice, Certificate III (Visual Art) and International Baccalaureate (with visual arts as a study area).
- The visual art head of department and principal of the school where the student is enrolled must endorse the artwork as appropriate and ensure that it is compliant with the eligibility and submission requirements.
- Only 1 work per student may be submitted and up to 4 entries per school.
- To support the judging process and online gallery, clear digital images are required for each submission or 1 screenshot for video works. We recommend supplying more than 1 image to assist the judging process.
- The size of the submitted artwork must not exceed 1.8m x 2m x 2m once installed.
- If the artwork has individual components, parts should not exceed 20kg.
- Video works should not exceed 4 minutes duration.
- Each submission must be accompanied by a supporting artist statement of no longer than 150 words. The artist statement must be written by the student, be grammatically correct and approved by the teacher submitting the artwork. We recommend also supplying process documentation to support the judging process.
- A consent form signed by a parent/guardian must accompany the submission or the artwork cannot be exhibited.
- Any work the department deems to be inappropriate for public viewing will not be accepted and the program manager will contact the school to discuss any concerns.
- Students must have the permission of the copyright owner of any work that has been reproduced in their artwork before it will be included in exhibitions. If permission has not been obtained, the work cannot be exhibited and the program manager will contact the school to discuss the concerns.
- All accepted artworks are invited to exhibit at their corresponding regional exhibition. Schools should liaise with the respective regional coordinator for more information. Artworks may be required to adapt their display to suit the venue and exhibition needs.
Judging process
A selection panel will shortlist up to 150 works from the total submissions. From the shortlist, up to 40 excellence winners will be selected, and 1 student from each region will receive a regional encouragement award. Awards are announced at the regional exhibition presentation events.