Artists and arts workers reveal their personal arts heroes

The mentors, friends and colleagues who inspire us deserve to be acknowledged – so let’s take a moment to do just that, in this nationwide celebration of our arts heroes.
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Photo by Gabriel Bassino on Unsplash.

Artists and arts workers are regularly called upon to promote themselves or their company’s work. Less often do we get to celebrate and publicise our mentors or the artists we admire; individuals whose work and commitment we love and respect.

Here, a range of practitioners from around the country acknowledge their own personal arts heroes – individuals they admire for a range of reasons, whether for their creativity and skill, their drive, or their compassion.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts