2.35pm OK, so we all know Nigel Milsom won Australia’s most prestigious portrait prize, the Archibald, this year, but a) the prize was announced the week before I started my blog and b) no-one invited me to the award ceremony. So I’ve decided to live blog my guided tour of the “Also Rans” and decide which portrait I will vote for in the People’s Choice Award, presented at the end of the Archibald Prize exhibition (at the Art Gallery of NSW until 27 September 2015.)
2.43pm On my way up Art Gallery Road…
2.49pm Arriving now. I have permission from the Art Gallery of NSW’s media officer, Lisa Catt, to blog my experience. Feeling sightly nervous about taking photos of the Archibald finalists on my phone. What if everything comes out blurred and horribly out of focus like most of my holiday snaps?
3.05pm Just been greeted by our guide, Patricia, and we’re off. Past a blue-tinged Elizabeth Farrelly and look up there! It’s Liberal politician Cory Bernardi, the man who once equated marriage equality with bestiality. He’s looking curiously glamorous in this portrait – sort of Cory reimagined by Tamara de Lempicka. There is muttering at the back of the art tour group that “this looks nothing like him!” I want to know why Cory’s holding what looks like a whip. It’s a bit sinister, but time’s up, gotta move on….
3.12pm Bruno Jean Grasswill’s portrait of actor Michel Caton won the Packing Room Prize this year – the award voted on by the staff who unpack the paintings. This may be because Michael gave the packers such a friendly smile as his wrapper came off. The Packing Room Prize is apparently known as The Kiss of Death – no artist has ever won the Packing Room Prize and then gone on to win the Archibald in the same year.
3.19 Apparently, Tony Curran’s portrait of Luke Grealy, a community leader in Wagga Wagga, was made with an I-pad app called Brushes. It’s really good in a digital abstract kind of way. Would be brilliant if someone made a gif of this!
3.24 pm Next up, Uncle Max Eulo. Patricia, our guide, tells us he’s often down at Circular Quay and once did a smoking ceremony for Prince William. I love the mix of pop art & Aboriginal dot painting in this one – and Uncle Max’s uncompromising stare.
3.30pm Tim Gregory should definitely win the award for Edgiest Painting in Show. His “Self-Portrait as Ancestors” is a comment on the confused nature of white Australia. Apparently, the get-ups he wears for his “eroticised reconstitutions of colonial history” come from a sexy costume store. My personal favourite so far…
3.36pm Turning the corner, I’m really taken with this portrait of artist Del Kathryn Barton and her staffie, Magic Dog. Our guide tells us it was done by Marc Etherington, an entirely self-taught artist who modestly describes himself as a “stay-at-home dad.” Love the fact she looks so comfortable amidst her crocheted rugs and pot plants…
3.45pm Patricia tells us artist Carla Fletcher and fashion designer Jenny Kee bonded over yoga sessions in the Blue Mountains while collaborating on this portrait. Wonder whether Jenny wore her fabulous red glasses as she did her downward dog. Love the fact Jenny’s face is in graphite pencil and the rest of the painting has been collaged on in layers… Worth getting up really close to this one!
3.52pm It’s the detail that strikes me in Jiawei Shen’s portrait of Judith Neilson, famous philanthropist and owner of Sydney’s White Rabbit Gallery. The cheeky bunny is apparently a reference to Joseph Beuys’s performance artwork involving a dead hare. Shen’s rabbit should definitely get Best Animal in Show…
3.59pm When Kristin Tennyson set out to paint North Queensland political celebrity Bob Katter she approached the portrait like an old-fashioned cowboy movie poster. There’s definitely a hint of John Wayne in Katter’s granite features set off by his squiggly red tie.
4.05pm And that’s the end of my whistle-stop tour of the Archibald Prize. We all know Nigel Milsom won this year’s prize for his haunting portrait of barrister Charles Waterstreet. But voting is still open in the People’s Choice Award – so get on down to the Art Gallery of NSW and have your say! I think Paul Gregory’s “Self-Portrait as Ancestors” is a strong contender. Or maybe Paul Ryan’s “Thirteen Noahs” – thirteen different portraits of actor and artist Noah Taylor painted on items sourced from a junk shop – should win for sheer originality… Anyone for a game of ping pong?
Julie Street 