For painter Marikit Santiago, the news she has won the Art Gallery of NSW's 2024 La Prairie Art Award comes with a big dollop of relief.
The $80,000 prize announced on Tuesday is a secret she's been holding since last September, and she describes the win as momentous.
"It's a very significant moment for me and my family ... before this, I still considered myself as an emerging artist," she told AAP.
Santiago combines religious iconography, Filipino folklore and images of her family to make large scale paintings on recycled cardboard.
The artist from western Sydney won the Sulman Prize in 2020 with a painting of her children, and she has also been a finalist in the Archibald Prize three times.
As part of the La Prairie award for women artists, which is in its third year, the gallery will acquire some of Santiago's latest work, with A Seat at the Table (Magulang) and A Seat at the Table (Kapatid) to enter the Art Gallery of NSW collection.
The images portray her parents and sister: magulang translates to "parents" and kapatid to "sibling" in Tagalog.
Santiago will also take up a residency in Europe as part of the prize, and importantly, her family will be there too - often her children's drawings are the first and last marks made on her artworks.
"My kids collaborate and contribute quite deeply in my work, and my husband as a subject, so I'd really love for all of us to travel and learn together," she said.
The artist especially wants to see the The Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the works of Botticelli in the flesh, as his compositions have been such an influence on her painting.
Santiago explains that she paints on recycled cardboard as a way of playing with ideas of perceived value, because cardboard is supposed to be thrown away, but she applies layers of rich images and even rich materials such as 24 carat gold leaf to the surface.
Don't worry, the cardboard surface is treated with several layers of primer before the paint is applied, and the painting is also mounted on stretched linen.
Conservators have assured Santiago her materials should stand the test of time, but the artist also said the preservation of her art is not for her to worry about.
"The work that I make needs to speak now, it needs to be seen now, it has to enter the conversations that are happening right now," she said.
"I'm not really concerned with how it'll last through history."
It may come as something of a relief to aspiring Archibald entrants that Santiago won't be entering the competition in 2024, as she is focusing on an upcoming solo show in Campbelltown next January.
Her paintings are also on show as part of the Adelaide Biennial at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
