Congratulations to Mitch Cairns who has taken out the 2017 Archibald Prize for portraiture with his painting of partner, and fellow artist, Agatha Gothe-Snape. Cairns was selected by the AGNSW trustees from a field of 43 finalists.
Since 1921, according to the guidelines, the prize has been awarded annually to a painted portrait “preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia.”
This year 10 artists judged themselves sufficiently important to qualify. Tony Albert, Jessica Ashton, Kate Beynon, David Griggs, Tsering Hannaford, Tjungkara Ken, Robert Malherbe, Vincent Namatjira, Natasha Walsh, and Madeline Winch all entered the prize with self-portraits.
While it takes a robust sort of confidence to enter a self-portrait in the prize, it is pretty standard behaviour these days. The wild card in this bunch is Tjungkara Ken’s canvas, Kungkarangkalpa tjukurpa (Seven Sisters dreaming), a self-portrait. This seemingly abstract composition in warm reds, orchres and purples doesn’t conform to any conventional Western notions of portraiture. “My painting is a self-portrait through Kungkarangkalpa tjukurpa, the Seven Sisters dreaming,” explains the artist in her statement, “a self-portrait of my country. For Anangu, they are one and the same.”
The Archibald Prize exhibition is always a mixed bag of treats and its ongoing popularity confounds some. But, although he wasn’t referring specifically to the Archibald, the American art historian James Elkins explained the perennial appeal of the Prize in his 1999 book, Pictures of the Body. According to Elkins, we, as a species, like nothing better than to look at images of ourselves. “Every picture,” he says, “is a picture of the body.”
While the Archibald tends to monopolise the limelight, winners of the Wynne and Sulman Prizes were also announced today.
The Wynne is judged by the AGNSW trustees. Betty Kuntiwa Pumani was awarded the prize for landscape painting of Australian scenery or figurative sculpture for her painting of her country, Antara.
Joan Ross won the Sulman Prize for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist with her work on paper, Oh history, you lied to me. The judge of the 2017 Sulman Prize was Archibald Prize finalist Tony Albert.
Voting for the Archibald Prize People’s Choice award closes 2 October.
Works by all the finalists are on show until 22 October.
The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2017
Art Gallery of New South Wales
29 July – 22 October
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
First Nations artist Reko Rennie possesses the gift of creating memorable images that are simultaneously puzzling, intriguing and entertaining.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country, curated by Jonathan Jones and now showing at Bundanon, highlights a long history of Indigenous art on the New South Wales south coast, with works and installations from Jones, Aunty Julie Freeman, Aunty Cheryl Davison, and Mickey of Ulladulla.
