Archibald Prize finalists, 2021

I wrote about the Sulman Prize here. On the same day I saw the Archibald Prize finalists at the Art Gallery of new South Wales.

There is a wide range of styles on display this year at the AGNSW for the Archibald prize hang. I really enjoyed myself this year, which might have something to do with the fact that I’ve lost almost a quarter of my body weight since last time. I feel younger and the prize just keeps getting better.

Natasha Bieniek’s portrait of Rachel Griffiths is tiny – measuring no more than 15cm in width – but it’s quite lovely, its fussy realism counterpoised with a strong design, he actress lying on a couch spread with a piece of intricately printed cloth. It’s as though she’d been captured relaxing at home. The brick wall behind her back is painted white, giving the scene a studio feel, though it’s clear this is a domestic setting. In the background, through windows, garden plants are visible, underscoring a cosiness and vulnerability that belongs also to the woman’s prone figure.

Jonathan Dalton has made an amusing portrait of an artist named Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, who is confusingly doubled, in one version holding a video camera to his eye. The camera is pointed out at the viewer, adding to the chaotic feel of this painting. The other version has, at his feet, an Instamatic camera – one of those 70s contraptions that allowed the photographer to crate a ready-to-use print instantaneously. The delay was minimal, a matter of minutes, in stead of the normal days or – at best – hours that normal photographs used to require to be made at a photo shop.

The subject wears a bright shirt that contrasts with his dark skin. The pink and yellow adding weight to his long, curly hair. He wears shorts and has bear feet. The two versions hold hand, in amity, if nothing else.

Next was Marikit Santiago’s ‘Filipiniana’, a self-portrait (in collaboration with Maella Santiago Pearl). Like the Dalton, this painting has immigration as a topic of discussion. The twinning we saw in the Dalton is present here, as well, this time the subject being the painter herself. I enjoyed the layered aesthetic of this work of art, which uses colour effectively to create drama. The white of the subject’s garment standing out strongly from the muted red background. Across it are leaves of tropical plants, broad and vigorous. 

Jude Rae’s ‘Inside Out’ is also a self-portrait, this time with the subject again pointing a camera out into the spectator’s space. Rae stands in front of a residential apartment building – it is night and the windows are lit, as though people were going about their evenings at home – taking a shot with her mobile phone, which is held in her right hand. Her left hand is crossed on her right arm. A reflection is also apparent, as though we were seeing what her camera had seen when she pressed the shutter button.

Rae has an amused look on her face, though he lips are set in a grim line, as though she were self-consciously trying to make a statement. Behind her back, on a bench, stands a bottle of wine. There are stools under a bench, so here we also have a domestic setting, as in the Bienieck.

Nick Stathopoulos’s ‘The white shirt – portrait of Tane Andrews’ is overtly Romantic, not only due to the flair of the external appearance of the subject, but also because of the smoothness of the painting’s finish. Here’s a painter who is consciously using the figurative mode to make a statement, the subdued colour palette of the work referencing the black-and-white that dominated in the 1990s.

Dapeng Liu’s painting is ‘A mind-body dualism portrait of Joanna Capon’, and it also uses hyper-realism to make a statement, this time pointing to the mystical nature of art, its ability to say things that are not only specific to an individual, but also general, and applicable more broadly to everyone. Liu also plays suggestively with Eastern and Western ideas about the self, the mind-body dualism of the title pointing, the artist says, to Descartes. But it could also equally be a comment on Eastern modes of understanding the world, with their heightened spiritual tone.

Kate Benyon’s ‘Collaborative spirits’ is a self-portrait with her son. The vibrant colours and cartoonish faces offer relief from some of the more austere works already mentioned.

Mirra Whale’s ‘Repose’ is a portrait of artist Ben Quilty, and it harks back to 19th century genre painting to produce a quiet ensemble of couch, the subject, and the darkness hovering behind him like a mythical landscape. In fact the subject could be immersed in a dream, but what visions will appear if we go inside his mind?

Fiona Lowry’s ‘Matthys’ is a portrait of an older man – perhaps in his late 50s – taking a shower. The palette is entirely pink, lending a surreal air to the scene, which has the unreality of a dream. The subject is an artist who works primarily in painting and photography.

Keith Burt’s portrait is of Sarah Holland-Batt, a poet. Done in a realist mode, the colour palette is yet restrained and sombre, as though the person being shown were in the law or in politics. 

Eunice Djerrknu Yunipingu’s ‘Me and my sisters’ takes the traditional Aboriginal mode of depicting a subject and turns it into a humorous way of describing the artist herself.

In Sinead Davies’ ‘The charity worker’ – a portrait of Tanya Lee OAM – we get another work with a restricted and sombre palette.

A quite different range of colours drives Julianne Ross Allcorn’s ‘I listen and they tell me bush news’, which is a self-portrait. In the ensemble, the subject is facing left as though she were talking with a magpie. The right-hand side of the space is closed off by this dynamic, though a tree trunk thrusts up into the air in the top-right corner of the canvas. As a composition the tone is subdued and quiet, as though the conversation had suddenly paused since the viewer came along to interrupt proceedings. Perhaps if we go away, it will start again ..!

Michael Snape’s ‘Stuart Purves’ shows a gallerist in full flight. It’s as though the subject were talking to us (not a magpie) and had sensed a willingness to buy a picture. Though the subject’s face is a garish pink, the colours elsewhere in the painting are subdued and plain. It is a businesslike painting and one that is sympathetic to the sitter’s point of view.

I love the wistful eyes in Karen Black’s ‘Professor Chandini Raina Macintyre’ (see below). There is a sadness in the face that is belied by the mostly upbeat palette, rich with warm colours in splashy zones.

Euan Macleod’s ‘Blak Douglas’ depicts an artist one of whose works I own. He is an Aboriginal man who makes pointed, acerbic works that take no prisoners. Macleod’s name is well-known.

Benjamin Aitken’s ‘Gareth Samson’ has something about Bacon in it and something also of Hockney but it’s not at all derivative. Rather, it bleeds new life into famous artists’ work.

I Included Olvier Watts’ ‘Dorian Gray (Eryn Jean Norvill)’ because I’d seen one of this artist’s works talked about – by the artist – some years before. A splash of hot red is buried in a mainly plain set of colours in this lively portrait. 

Peter Berner’s self-portrait (see below) has added interest because the artist is a radio presenter. Titled ‘Stop pouting, you’ve had your turn’ I wonder if the message is directed to himself, or else to the viewer in a crowded gallery?

Matthew Clarke’s portrait of the famous Australian painter Del Kathryn Barton is childlike but quite lovely.

To cap the show here I’ll put up Julia Ciccarone’s ‘The sea within’, which is an intriguing work that references homelessness, irregular boat arrivals, and larger ideas about the nature of the world and our place within it. Loved the way the artist places herself in a vulnerable position at the same time as she’s the author of the entire thing. The comparison of homeless people with migrants is touching and accurate. Why are they homeless?