Mark Phillips
Monday, November 10, 2025
A PORTRAIT of the late John Englart that was painted shortly before the environmental campaigner died in July has won the Climate Activism Award at this year’s Merri-bek Summer Show.
Maggie Chiara Cowling began working on the watercolour and pencil portrait of a pensive Englart with his two pet chihuahuas a few months before he died suddenly at home. The work was not quite finished when he died and she spent a few agonising weeks of conflicting emotions before she was able to complete it.
Cowling, of Coburg North, was announced as winner of the $500 prize on Saturday at the opening of the annual exhibition at the Counihan Gallery in Brunswick.
Syrian-born Batoul Ahmad of Oak Park won the $4000 Noel Counihan Commemorative Art Award for a mixed media work that was informed by returning to Damascus for the first time in more than a decade earlier this year.
The theme of this year’s summer show is Love In Crisis and with the world feeling as if it is under siege from wars, environmental disasters and the spread of authoritarianism there was no shortage of subject matter.
About 120 artists who live, work or study in Merri-bek have works on show in a multitude of media ranging from painting and sculpture to video, photography, textiles, dressmaking and more. One work, Love Machine by Tom Richards, uses a vintage 1980s computer that visitors can interact with.
“The theme Love in Crisis feels especially resonant right now,” said Linda Short, the team leader of Merri-bek’s gallery and arts programs.
“In a world that often feels uncertain and divided, love can seem fragile – tested by conflict, loss, and fear – yet it remains vital, reminding us of our shared humanity.
“The artists in this year’s Summer Show have approached the theme in many ways, exploring personal, political, and environmental concerns. Together, their works highlight the importance of love, in all its forms.”
Detail of John Englart.
Maggie Chiara Cowling’s prizewinning portrait of John Englart captures him in a moment of reflection, his eyes gazing skyward. One of his dogs, Jones, looks directly at the viewer while Juliet has her face turned in profile.
She said that to her the pose typified Englart’s “bigger vision” for the world.
Cowling met Englart about 2019 at an anti-nuclear event and became good friends with him. He agreed to sit for her in February and she sent him a photo of the work in progress before he died, aged 70.
“We worked together a lot of climate related things at climate action Merri-bek and I was just a huge fan of John’s,” Cowling said
“I admired him immensely, and I become more and more involved in climate action Merri-bek, really, because I could see what John was doing was amazing.
“On a more personal level, I felt that he was somebody to cherish in our community and a lot of people felt the same way.”
In a bitter twist of fate, it was Cowling and her partner who discovered Englart’s body at home in Fawkner after friends had become concerned that they hadn’t been able to contact him for several days.
Finishing the painting was difficult but as soon as the theme of the Summer Show was announced, the watercolourist knew she had to enter it.
Top: detail of The day I thought of death, I saw a dead bird, and my friend wrote her will Above: Batoul Ahmad with Mick Counihan.
The Noel Counihan Commemorative Art Award is named after the influential mid-20th century Australian illustrator and political activist whose name the gallery also bears. The winning entry was announced by his son Mick.
Batoul Ahmad created her winning entry, The day I thought of death, I saw a dead bird, and my friend wrote her will, after visiting her home city of Damascus in January this year following the collapse of the tyrannical Assad regime.
It was the first time the 27-year-old had returned to Damascus since fleeing with her family as a 16-year-old.
She said that while the overthrow of Assad was a cause for celebration and hope, there was still much suffering and despair in Syria which had deeply affected Ahmad.
Using a collage of photographs and her own illustrations, the work seeks to convey the suffering experienced by women in Syria which includes kidnappings, assaults and massacres, and to pay tribute to their strength and resilience.
As she explained in her artist’s statement: “Love and empathy remain a question, not concepts, in the Syrian context”.
“When I came back from Syria, I felt this really deep urge to shave my head because of the sadness and anger that got into me,” Ahmad said.
“It was very heavy experience. So that idea kept on my mind, and after that, I just imagined all those women that we’re hearing about in news, that are disappearing and being kidnapped, what if we had a party and we all shaved our head as women, and each strand of hair turns into another woman, just to reflect the strength of them and their resilience. … We all have hope but still we’re angry and we want to see people safe, the killing stop, the kidnapping stopped so people are given the chance of a good life, without fear.”
For the three judges, Short, Arrernte artist Georgia Cromarty, artist and academic Dr Sofi Basseghi, the work resonated very strongly with its themes of displacement, hope, healing and human connection.
Arriving in Australia via Malaysia in 2016, Ahmad completed high school in Melbourne and in 2023 graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts.
Her husband, Mwaffaq Al Hajjar, a poet, also has a mixed media work, If only my fingers, in the exhibition.
This year, the Summer Show has introduced a children’s gallery and activity station where young people can make postcard-sized drawings in response to the theme. These will be displayed in the Counihan Gallery’s front windows in January.
Gallery visitors can also vote in the $1000 People’s Choice Awards which will be announced after the exhibition closes.
The Merri-bek Summer Show, Love In Crisis, continues until December 18. The Counihan Gallery is open 11am to 5pm Wednesday to Saturday and 1pm to 5pm on Sundays. Entry is free.
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