![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/484c6178b5ca0f2bfd4c05cef7c034f0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nMultimedia artist\u00a0Juanella Donovan, an Adnyamathanha, Luritja and Lower Southern Arrernte woman, has taken out the 2025 People’s Choice Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for the second time.<\/p>\n
Donovan’s artwork Desert Flower emerged as the public favourite from hundreds of entries across the country in the event, held by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT).<\/p>\n
The South Australia-based mother of four says the award, announced earlier this month, and which she also won in 2022, is not just a personal achievement, but recognition of the cultural knowledge embedded in her work.<\/p>\n
“It is a beautiful thing to be awarded such a prize, and it is recognition that we are able to pass on knowledge of our stories through our arts practice,” Donovan said.<\/p>\n
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Juanella Donovan won the 2025 People’s Choice Award for her artwork Desert Flower. (Supplied: Juanella Donovan)<\/p>\n
For Donovan, storytelling is inseparable from art \u2014 and from family.<\/p>\n
“It’s my mum. She introduced me to stories from my country from when I was a baby and onwards, the same way as she was taught,” she said.<\/p>\n
Those early lessons shaped a lifelong commitment to creative expression. As a child, Donovan says, her determination to learn and create was unmistakable.<\/p>\n
“I would run away from Augusta Park Primary School, through the sand dunes, and go to my aunty to do art \u2014 to paint and hear Dreaming stories,” she said.<\/p>\n
Her journey is part of a broader tradition of cultural transmission among Indigenous women, according to curator Rebekah Raymond from the\u00a0MAGNT.<\/p>\n
“Women \u2014 Indigenous women \u2014 have always been such great storytellers, and the stories have been passed on from mothers to daughters,” Ms Raymond said.<\/p>\n
“What is unique about Juanella Donovan is how she is using art to tell these stories anew.”<\/p>\n
Ms Raymond said Donovan’s upbringing in a creative environment, combined with encounters with arts educators, helped forge important collaborations.<\/p>\n
“She is lucky that she grew up in an environment of artistic practice. This, and meeting arts educators, created one of those moments of osmosis which forged beautiful collaborations,” she said.<\/p>\n
‘Pushing the boundaries’<\/p>\n
Marika Davies, regional curator with Tarnanthi, which showcases Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, has followed Donovan’s practice for many years and says storytelling remains central to her work.<\/p>\n
“Storytelling lies at the heart of it all,” Ms Davies said.<\/p>\n
“Juanella is pushing the boundaries of Aboriginal art every time she creates a new artwork. She shows that Indigenous art is not just dots on a canvas.”![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/37e569f52f1e9c14fc84a7740c2df627.jpeg\")
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Juanella Donovan won her first People’s Choice Award in 2022 for her artwork Hold Me. (Supplied: Juanella Donovan)<\/p>\n
Living and working in regional Australia has also shaped Donovan’s distinctive style. Limited access to art supplies has encouraged experimentation and resourcefulness.<\/p>\n
“You need to improvise, and make a virtue of necessity,” she said.<\/p>\n