Born in Melbourne, Natasha Bieniek began her formal artistic training at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002. Bieniek’s When the music’s over (2006) won the Nino Sanciolo Art Prize, a painting scholarship to study at the Accademia d’Arte in Florence, where she learnt the ancient technique of egg tempera. In 2012, she was the winner of the Metro Art Award in Melbourne and was awarded runner-up for the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. 2014 is the fourth consecutive year that Bieniek has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize.Her 2014 solo exhibition was shown at Art Basel in Hong Kong.