Queer and famous faces feature in the 2022 Archibald Prize

Archibald

The 2022 Archibald Prize features many well known Australians including many members of the LGBTIQA+ communities, as well as a significant number of famous faces….and in Benjamin Law’s case, even more.

Several of the portraits making the final cut feature people who have previously been painted for the competition, including broadcaster Law and musician Deborah Conway.

The prize is the most competitive portrait competition in Australia and draws thousands of visitors to the Art Gallery of New South Wales each year. The subjects in portraits can range from celebrities to politicians and fellow artists.

The award is for the best portrait, “preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics”. While hundreds of artists spend months working on portraits only a select few make it through to the final round.

Winning the prize can make an artist a household name, and lead to many lucrative commissions alongside the prize money and prestige the award brings.

For broadcaster Benjamin Law this year he’s been painted by artist Jordan Richardson, an artist who has been a finalist on four occasions. His portrait titled Venus shows a naked Law reclining on chaise lounge. Richardson said Law had no hesitation about being painted as a nude.

“I approached Benjamin about sitting for a portrait because I had imagined a reinterpretation of Diego Velázquez’s 17th-century painting The Rokeby Venus and felt that Ben would be a perfect candidate. As I’d anticipated, he was happy to give it a red-hot go,” Richardson said.

“There is a good deal of Benjamin’s humour embedded in the work, but I also believe it to be a sincerely beautiful picture. I love the voyeuristic nature of the pose, where, after closer inspection, we see him staring back at us through the mirror, watching us all along. I wanted to revel in the Baroque composition and paint handling, using the portrait as a vehicle to reimagine Velázquez’s image of ideal feminine beauty through a very different lens.”

Artist Kim Leutwyler has often painted drag performers both in costume and without their frocks and make-up. This time round she captured both Courtney Act and Shane Jenek, the person behind the performance.

“I have always been drawn to Courtney’s vibrancy, fearlessness and talent. She negotiates the boundaries of gender and sexuality both in and out of drag,” the US-born, Sydney-based artist said.

‘During our sittings we discussed life, love, gender expression and the many permutations of queerness we’ve experienced while living and travelling overseas. It’s a beautiful thing to meet someone and feel so instantly connected and comfortable in their presence. Perhaps that connection is bound to happen between two queer people who are openly and unapologetically themselves at all times,’ Leutwyler said..

‘As always, I blended realism and abstraction as a subtle vernacular to portray the fluidity and complexities of identity and sexuality.’

Caroline Zilinsky selected reality TV stars Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie, who won the TV show The Block in 2021, as her subject. She decided to title her portrait of the couple Kubla Khan after the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, saying she was reminded of the ode to an exotic place when she entered the flamboyant couple’s realm.

“I use patterns in my work to mimic the patterns one makes in one’s life, so when I met Mitch and Mark the work almost painted itself. After being together for 18 years, they work in such tandem they almost become one in the portrait, says Zilinsky, a first-time Archibald finalist. ‘I also use a method of etching into the canvas, as though the image is carving out its own existence.” Zilinsky said.

Artist Nick Stathopoulos made the Archibald cut for the eighth time in his acclaimed career. This year he decided to paint curator Wayne Tunniciffe. Knowing that he’d potentially spend many hours with his sitter, Stathopoulos shared that he also really wanted to get to know his subject better.

The idea of painting Tunnicliffe came after Stathopoulos made multiple visits to an exhibition he currated on Australian artist Arthur Streeton.

“I wanted to know more about the person behind the exhibition, as it was so impressive. What better way to get to know someone than to have them sit for you?” Stathopoulos said.

A portrait of director Taika Waititi won this year’s Packer’s Prize. The honour is bestowed by the packing team who have to present hundreds of paintings to the judges for consideration.

Also among this year’s subjects were Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-Lee Furness, artist Patricia Piccinini, union leader Sally McManus, and Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett, who was painted by Anh Do. Actors Lisa McCune and Samuel Johnson were also painted, as was author Helen Garner, and TV hosts Yumi Stynes and Brooke Boney, plus journalist Lara Tingle.

Serious topics are amongst the finalists as well, Kurdish refugee Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar submitted a self-portrait titled KNS088, the number he was assigned during his eight years in detention. His work was painted using a toothbrush and coffee, the tools he used when he was denied art supplies.

Jonathan Dalton’s Day 77 captures his family during Melbourne’s long Covid lockdown, while Blak Douglas, a Sydney-based artist with Dhungatti heritage presented a work that captured the recent floods in New South Wales. His portrait of Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens, who lives on Bundjalung Country in Lismore, shows her tackling the floods with a bucket in each hand.

Exhibitions for the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes will open on Saturday May 14 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

OIP Staff


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