Sydney artist Luke Cornish, also known as ELK, has won the 2026 Gallipoli Art Prize ($20,000 acquisitve prize auspiced by the Gallipoli Memorial Club) with his work No Rest (The Vandalism of Deir al Balah).
Cornish said the work is ‘a response to the widely underreported desecration of the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, by the Israeli Defence Force – a place of supposed eternal rest – where lies the fallen of the First World War, a generation shaped by loyalty, courage, and comradeship, men who believed their sacrifice might secure a more peaceful future. My great uncle, Alfred Cook of the Australian Light Horse, is buried here.’
