Sydney artist George Gittoes has been presented with the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize at a ceremony on Tuesday night.
The artist and filmmaker was chosen to receive the Sydney Peace Foundation award in April this year.
And in a year commemorating the centenary of Anzac, Foundation Chair David Hirsch said the fact that Gittoes had experienced conflict first-hand made him a fitting choice.
"The criteria for the peace prize is we are looking for people who have made a significant contribution to peace with justice, respect for human rights and the language and practise of non-violence," he told SBS.
"George seemed to be the right person to bring a humanist perspective to conflict because he's been there. He's not approaching this theoretically and he's not a sentimentalist. He's actually been in conflict zones.
"He's been in places you and I would rather not be and he's come out of it remarkably with a degree of optimism about humanity and a message that's worth hearing."
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The Sydney Peace Prize Jury’s citation praises Gittoes' "work as a painter, film maker and photojournalist", covering conflicts and upheavals in places such as Nicaragua, Somalia, Cambodia, Western Sahara, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Bougainville, East Timor, South Africa, Palestine, Iraq and Pakistan.
In announcing Gittoes as the Peace Prize winner, Mr Hirsch described him as "daring, brash and irreverent".
"The Jury felt his unique approach to peacebuilding and social justice should be recognised and applauded," he said.
Gittoes told SBS News keeping the stories of conflict victims alive had motivated him over his 45 year career.
"There's not many artists who go there and create in the face of this giant phenomenon which is the war machine and that's what I've always been compelled to do," he said.
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