'Like taking Ashes from a baby' or 'Let there be a thousand blossoms bloom'.
These are just some of the themes that Maude, a sulphur-crested cockatoo living in a gum tree at Coolac in the NSW Riverina, must choose between.
She is famous for judging the 2024 Bald Archy Prize — a $10,000 award for satirical portraits of the big figures of the past year.
"We have a friendly farmer in Coolac who takes his iPad to the gum tree," prize organiser and manager of the Museum of the Riverina Luke Grealy said.
"We FaceTime Maude, and she looks at the paintings, and we interpret her sounds — her crest movements, her wing movements — so we can tell how she's reacting to each painting," he said.
A large chunk of this year's 40 entries highlight the highs and lows of Australian sport, with Matildas Sam Kerr, Mackenzie Arnold and Mary Fowler immortalised in paint after the team's nation-uniting Women's World Cup performance.
Australia's controversial Ashes win at Lord's also featured, with captain Pat Cummins sitting above England wicketkeeper Johnny Bairstow and TV personality Piers Morgan, both pictured wearing nappies.
Sports stars sit side-by-side with plenty of political satire, with portraits of former Reserve Bank governor Phillip Lowe, federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.
"There's a great Australian tradition of enjoying taking the Mickey," Mr Grealy said.
"Satire is a really important thing in society and to be able to prick the egos of the elite in politics or sport or the arts — and not always prick their egos, sometimes we're celebrating them — but I think people relate to that."
'Let there be a thousand blossoms bloom'
The prize was started in 1994 by Peter Batey OAM in Wagga Wagga as a way to poke fun at notable Australians, politics and the art world.
This exhibition marks the second year the Bald Archies has been run without its founder after he died in mid-2019.
"Batey would be rapt, he'd be absolutely delighted. His legacy lives on," Mr Grealy said.
"We're still offering the opportunity for artists to win serious prize money and create art that makes Australians think and smile."
Taking up that challenge, multiple artists used their entries to poke fun at politicians, turning the opposition leader into either an egg or potato, including John Skillington's 'Exit Via the Giftshop', which also features Mr Dutton's deputy Sussan Ley as a cat-shaped bobblehead figurine.
Another entry by Marty Steel features the towering figure of Bob Katter as a sheriff in the outback using his immortal line: "Let a thousand blossoms bloom".
Ministers Chris Bowen and Tanya Plibersek are also not immune from featuring in the satire, while former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appears in several portraits — noting the announcement of his retirement last year and the controversy around his cancelling of the Commonwealth Games.
The 'No' campaign's success at last year's referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament also features multiple times in the exhibition, including an entry by artist Ingrid Jaugietis' impression of prominent campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price with her heart at Uluru.
This year also boasts the first entry by a child, with 14-year-old Peyton Johnson entering 'Crocodile Dunny', of the famous character in a toilet wearing croc shoes.
Gallery and Events Manager at Watson Art Centre, Katrina Leske, was happy to welcome the prize entries from today until mid-March when the winner will be announced in Canberra.
"It's not just about the people who we like to tease or the people who we like to demonise for things that they've said over the last year or two," Ms Leske said.
"There are heroes in the show, we've got a lot of joy throughout the show as well."
Mr Grealy said Maude the cockatoo knows she has got her work cut out for her.
"Maude knows she's on a deadline," he said.
"She's had a look, she's contemplating, and we'll get back to her hopefully within the next week and say come on Maude. What do you think?"