Peter Yates is a visual artist living on unceded Palawa country in Lutruwita/Tasmania. Working primarily in oil paint, his practice spans landscape and portraiture and is grounded in direct observation. Having begun his career as an ecologist, Peter approaches painting as another means of understanding and communicating through close observation and time spent immersed in a place. He seeks to translate lived experience into paintings that reflect the complexity and emotional resonance of the natural world.

Peter has been shortlisted in major art competitions including the 2024 Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award and is the winner of the 2020 Basil Sellers Art Prize.

Exhibitions and Awards

  • 2026 Finalist, Lethbridge Gallery Small Scale Art Award

  • 2026 Finalist, Lethbridge Gallery Tattersall’s Club Landscape Art Prize

  • 2026 Little Gallery Emerging Artist Program Callout, Devonport Regional Gallery (Sep-Nov 2027)

  • 2026 Art for Takayna Exhibition, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre

  • 2025 Finalist, A.M.E Bale Travelling Scholarship

  • 2025 Finalist, A.M.E Bale Art Prize For Oils or Acrylics

  • 2025 Finalist, A.M.E Bale Art Prize For Works On Paper

  • 2025 Finalist, Kennedy Prize

  • 2025 Salon, Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award

  • 2025 Fundraising Auction for Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association (PANZMA)

  • 2024 Finalist, Henry Jones Art Prize

  • 2024 Finalist, Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award

  • 2022 Finalist, Rick Amor Self Portrait Prize

  • 2022 Award for Painting. Art Society of Tasmania Members Exhibition

  • 2020 Winner, Basil Sellers Art Prize

  • 2020 Finalist, Mosman Art Prize

Education

  • 2023-2024 Studio Escalier, Argenton-Château, France

  • 2020-2024 Hamley Studio, Australia

  • 2019-2020 Julian Ashton Art School, Australia

  • 2011-2014 PhD in Environmental Science

Artist talks, curatorial projects & collaborations

  • 2027 Art-Science Advisor. Beaker Street performance by Nelipot Collective and Lutruwita Art Orchestra

  • 2026 Curatorial Intern, Art for Takayna Exhibition, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre

  • 2026 Artist talk. Art for Takayna Exhibition, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre

  • 2025 Workshop coordination. Modern Impressionism with Colley Whisson, Archaica Scholar

  • 2020 Illustrator, Pirates of the Carrageenan: Joyful Seaweed Adventures (ISBN978-0-6450378-0-7)

  • 2021 Basil Sellers Literary Salon