“LIFE  goes on, exciting eh?” an over-the-moon Dr David Sequeira crowed to “CityNews” from Melbourne, where he is now living, as he told us he had just won the inaugural Wyndham Art Prize.

The $10,000 Non-Acquisitive Prize is designed to bring new attention to the emerging contemporary art space, the Wyndham Art Gallery,  on the river in Werribee central.

Senior curator at the McClelland Gallery on the Mornington Peninsula, Penny Teale, judged the first prize, one of many generous awards made, including a $4000 bursary towards a PhD candidature at Deakin University.

It has already been a year crowded with adventure for the volatile Sequeira.

Earlier this year the Canberra Museum and Gallery unveiled a commissioned work by Sequeira called “After Images,” a large mural visible to the public and facing north toward CMAG and The Playhouse car park.

Then he won the directorship of director of M16 Artspace in Griffith, occupying the post for just three weeks before accepting the top job at the Latrobe Valley Regional Gallery in the regional town of Morwell, a 90-minute drive from Melbourne.

Then,  after just four months of stirring the local art community into action and several “communication issues” with the local council, he was summarily dismissed and escorted from the gallery. The news  sent shock waves through the arts community of the valley, which rallied behind Sequeira.

As “CityNews” has previously reported, Sequeira lived in Canberra for more than 20 years. An artist and curator with a PhD in fine art from RMIT, he was a staffer at the National Gallery of Australia, the founder of the “Everything and Nothing” gallery project in Canberra, co-organiser of the queer cultural festival, “Springout”, founder/director of the Hughes Music Festival and a former director of Events and Business Development at Parliament House. He was also the artistic director of the “Imagining Canberra” film event, a centenary project held in the Old Parliament House Senate Rose Gardens.