Join Pia Hughes, volunteer guide co-ordinator, to hear the stories behind select artworks. Look for the corresponding number and headphone symbol next to each work.
Hello and welcome to the ANZ Blue Audio Tour of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2020. Let’s start by acknowledging the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land on which we’re standing.
I’m Pia Hughes, volunteer guide coordinator here at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Every year, the volunteer guides and I interview the finalists of the three prizes – and the fascinating stories that emerge form the basis of our guided tours of the exhibition. This year, physical distancing measures have made in-person tours impractical, so we’ve made this audio tour instead. Think of it as a knowledgeable volunteer guide in your pocket.
This year, we received a record number of entries for the three prizes: 2565 in total – with 107 finalists exhibited here. This tour will take you to a selection of works that we hope reflects the diversity of the exhibition.
In the first two rooms, you’ll encounter finalists in the Sulman Prize, judged this year by artist Khadim Ali. Works in the Sulman are genre or subject paintings, which covers a wide range of themes: from personal stories to imaginary worlds to political allegories.
The next rooms contain finalists in the Wynne Prize, for landscape painting or figurative sculpture. The landscape paintings, which dominate the prize, address both the abundance and fragility of the natural world in Australia.
And finally, you’ll come to the Archibald Prize – Australia’s most famous prize for portraiture. It might surprise you to know that the people painted for the Archibald don’t need to be famous – nor do they need to be Australian. Artists have captured people from all walks of life this year, and the extraordinary events of 2020 – the global pandemic, surging political movements and the memories of last summer’s devastating bushfires – came up time and again in our interviews.
In a sense, all three prizes form a portrait of 2020 – a year like no other – and I’m looking forward to sharing the stories behind it all with you.
Hip-hop artist Sukhdeep Singh Bhogal is better known as L-FRESH The LION. He was born and raised in south-west Sydney. ‘FRESH’ is an acronym for ‘Forever Rising Exceeding Sudden Hardships’, while ‘LION’ refers to his middle name, ‘Singh’, which is given to Sikh men to convey majestic courage.
Claus Stangl, a self-taught artist and emerging filmmaker, first met the musician in a Redfern cafe. He sees L-FRESH as a new and necessary type of leader in Australia; one connected to his Sikh and Punjabi roots and inspiring people worldwide with messages of social justice through his music.
Claus painted his subject in profile to recall the type of official royal portraiture found on coins and postage stamps. The portrait took 127 hours to complete – he spent the most time on the beard, painting every individual strand. L-FRESH wears a head garment called a patka, which he mostly wears in private or during boxing training. Fans would be more used to seeing him in his turban on stage and in music videos. The choice of colour in the portrait is significant. In the Sikh tradition, orange represents wisdom – and the deep navy blue of the background, the warrior.
Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish–Iranian journalist and writer who sought asylum in Australia in 2013 after fleeing persecution in Iran. For over six years, he was held by the Australian federal government on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, where he spoke out against the oppressive conditions he experienced there. He wrote his award-winning memoir, No friend but the mountains, on a mobile phone – painstakingly texting each section to his translator and editor.
The artist, Angus McDonald, first had the idea to paint Behrouz while making his award-winning short film, Manus. But when he flew to Papua New Guinea for a sitting in 2019, he was turned back by officials. It wasn’t until Behrouz was granted asylum in New Zealand earlier this year that they met face-to-face.
Despite his emotional exhaustion from years of incarceration, the lighter side of Behrouz’s personality shone through; he was funny, kind and warm. Struck by his resilience and confidence, Angus posed Behrouz at the centre of the composition – larger than life-size – gazing directly at the viewer. He had considered using a black-and-white palette, but after spending the week with Behrouz and seeing how vibrant he looked, he knew it had to be colour.
David Capra is an artist known for his absurd and humorous performances that question social norms and encourage social connections. His work often stars Teena, his beloved dachshund, who is curled around his shoulders in this portrait.
Katherine Edney studied with David at art school 20 years ago, and they’ve been friends ever since. David wanted to be painted in his standard white performance costume, which references 1970s performance art. To prepare for the portrait, Katherine strung a white bedsheet over the washing line, held the corners down with bricks and positioned David and Teena in front of it. They played in a variety of poses. Katherine remembers when Teena was a puppy, running over David’s shoulders, and this is what she wanted to capture.
The title David, Teena and the black dog refers to David’s relationship with anxiety and with his inner world. He projects a certain bravado in this portrait, like a superhero, but Katherine can see the vulnerability he conceals behind his performer’s facade.
Kaylene Whiskey has a vivid imagination and likes to have fun with her paintings. So, in this self-portrait, she imagined Dolly Parton visiting her small community of Indulkana in the APY Lands. A country and pop music fan, Kaylene often paints her favourite performers, who she listens to while she paints. Tina Turner, Michael Jackson and Cher have all made appearances in her work.
Here, Kaylene wears a colourful outfit decorated with motifs of the native flora and fauna of her Country, along with sneakers and a camera. Dolly Parton wears a figure-hugging dress and stilettos, and hands her decorated banjo to the artist. It is a witty, contemporary encounter between pop stardom and everyday life.
The artist uses her work to share a strong, positive message about life in a remote Indigenous community. The background of this painting is brimming with symbols – you’ll find an Aboriginal flag, female superhero figures, crossed boomerangs, a yin-and-yang motif, wrapped-up gifts, a cockatoo, baskets of flowers and more. They’re objects from different contexts and cultures, joyously jumbled together. Dolly and Kaylene – women from two different cultures and different sides of the globe – find a connection here, through art and music.
When Vincent Namatjira saw the 2019 documentary The final quarter about Adam Goodes’s final season playing AFL football, he was deeply moved. As he watched Adam’s experiences with relentless racism on and off the field, memories of his own life were so stirred up, he knew he wanted to paint him. The result, entitled Stand strong for who you are, is the winner of this year’s Archibald Prize.
Vincent originally planned a straightforward composition for the portrait, but changed his mind as he talked with Adam while sketching. The two men discovered so many shared experiences – being displaced from their families, disconnected from their culture and country, and feeling the constant pressures of being an Aboriginal man living in Australia today. So Vincent started planning a more complex composition – putting himself in the picture to capture their bond of pain, pride and strength.
In the foreground, Vincent is shaking hands with Adam – they are ‘brothers in arms’ in the fight against racism. In the background, we see two images of Adam from his football playing days. In the one on the left, he’s celebrating his goal and his Indigenous culture with a warrior’s dance in the AFL Indigenous round in 2015. And in the centre, he’s paying tribute to fellow footballer Nicky Winmar’s famous gesture, pointing to his skin as an expression of Black pride. And on the right-hand side, Vincent has included a self-portrait, proudly holding the Aboriginal flag and pointing back at his hero.
Vincent also had a bit of fun with the canvas, especially with the footprints, which were the very last thing he painted. He covered his feet in red paint and walked carefully across the canvas, trying not to slip over! In some Aboriginal paintings, footprints or animal tracks can stand for significant journeys. Here, Vincent says they refer to his and Adam’s shared journey, to show that they are both moving forward, towards a better future.
In 2019, Dujuan Hoosan, a young Arrernte and Garrwa boy, flew to Geneva to address the UN Human Rights Council. At 12 years old, he was the youngest person ever to do so. Sharing his own experiences growing up in Central Australia, Dujuan made a powerful plea for Aboriginal children’s rights. He called for governments in Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 – so that kids like him don’t end up in prison at such a tender age.
When artist Blak Douglas first saw Dujuan in the documentary In my blood it runs, he knew he wanted to paint him – to capture Dujuan’s wisdom and to tell the story of Indigenous youth in Australia today. Dujuan posed playfully for Blak in the studio. But the artist decided to focus solely on the boy’s face – as in his earlier portraits that celebrate Aboriginal elders –giving his subject a nobility beyond his years.
In the background, Dujuan’s own words appear in neat, cursive handwriting – as if written out in punishment on a classroom blackboard. Dujuan, who speaks three languages and is regarded as a healer in his community, is frustrated by a Western education system that neither uses his language nor understands his culture. Blak’s painting, for all its bold, graphic simplicity, expresses the complexity of life for Aboriginal kids of Dujuan’s generation.
Lucy Culliton was on the verge of laughter while she was posing in her garden for Monica Rohan. An artist herself, she’s more used to being on the other side of the canvas – and has been an Archibald finalist several times. In fact, you can see her portrait of farmer Charlie Maslin hanging just nearby.
Monica and Lucy have become friends through the art scene. They show their work at the same Brisbane gallery. Monica was drawn to Lucy as a portrait subject because of their shared interest in celebrating the colour and pattern that surrounds us in everyday life.
Embarking on the portrait, Monica went down to visit Lucy at her farm in the Monaro region of southern New South Wales. They walked around Lucy’s extensive garden and Monica asked her to stand under her favourite flowering tree. She wanted the painting to represent the connection Lucy has to the landscape she has nurtured at her home.
Back in her small Brisbane studio, Monica started painting as bushfires raged down south, creating a strange juxtaposition between the memory of the lush haven of Lucy’s garden and the harsh reality playing out on the TV.
When Louise Hearman won the 2016 Archibald Prize for her portrait of Barry Humphries, Barry Jones wrote her a letter of congratulations. He also asked, would she consider painting him, the ‘other’ Barry?
After a few years of thinking about possible approaches to the portrait, Louise pulled out Barry’s letter and thought, ‘let’s give it a go’. Sometimes Louise works on many paintings simultaneously, but this painting was the sole focus of her attention for many months.
Barry, an Australian National Living Treasure, will be 88 this year. Often described as a polymath, he’s been a writer, broadcaster, academic, social justice advocate and member of both the Victorian and Federal parliaments. As Louise says, he has also played a part in fixing the hole in the ozone layer: as science minister in the Hawke government in 1987, he signed Australia to the Montreal Protocol, limiting the world’s CFC emissions.
When Barry saw the finished portrait in Louise’s studio, he banged his walking stick on the floor and pronounced it a fantastic effort. The white streak across the painting’s surface is undefined and Louise was tickled that Barry’s grandson asked, ‘why is he holding an eel?’. It can be anything you see, and that’s how the artist likes it.
If you’re a fan of the hit TV show Ru Paul’s drag race, you might recognise this person – or you might not. American performer Brian Firkus is better known by his drag persona, Trixie Mattel. Trixie and Brian are the subject of the acclaimed Netflix documentary, Trixie Mattel: moving parts, which charts their bittersweet rise to fame.
Kim Leutwyler has painted Trixie before, having been star-struck when she met her backstage during Trixie’s 2019 tour of Australia. But this time she wanted to paint Brian, the man behind the wig and the Barbie doll-inspired frocks.
Kim sees portrait painting as a collaboration, so she and Brian worked together to choose the right outfit and colour scheme for the painting. He wears a checked shirt that embodies his country roots and a favourite hat picked up on his travels in Australia. But the colours are inspired by Trixie’s wardrobe. During their 2-hour sitting in Los Angeles, Kim used her iPad to create sketches and a digital painting. Back home in her Redfern studio, she transformed the image on the canvas using brushes and palette knives, merging the figure with abstract planes of riotous colour.
Wendy Sharpe doesn’t normally paint portraits, but she was keen to capture Magda Szubanski. She admires Magda as both a comedian and an activist. Magda has been a vocal advocate for marriage equality and raised significant funds to support those suffering in the wake of bushfires. When Wendy read Magda’s memoir, Reckoning, she was struck by the story of her father, a Polish resistance fighter in World War II.
When the artist and the actor first met, Magda spoke about her favourite painting: a portrait of a sad court jester. She said to Wendy, ‘that’s me’.
In the Archibald portrait, Magda appears as Sharon Strzelecki, her character from the hit comedy series Kath and Kim. Sharon’s netball outfit and pudding-bowl haircut are unmistakable. But the comedy is tempered by tragedy. Behind her, buildings burn and planes pierce the smoke. The setting refers to Magda’s father’s wartime experience, but also recalls recent bushfires and other world events.
Wendy wanted to paint more than a likeness. She wanted to show Magda as someone burdened by tragic events in the world, but with the resilience to continue to face her audience and make them laugh.
Earlier this year, actor and playwright Meyne Wyatt delivered a heart-stopping anti-racism monologue on the ABC’s Q&A program. It drew from his play City of gold – an honest portrayal of what it’s like to be a young Aboriginal man in Australia – and it garnered world-wide attention.
Meyne painted throughout his childhood in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. He was guided by his mother Sue, who is an artist, illustrator and sign writer. The recent COVID-19 lockdown provided the chance to return to painting, and he chose himself as the subject. He started with the eyes, which he always does with portraiture, and used a photograph on his phone for reference. Meyne sent progress images to Sue, who encouraged him to enter it in the Archibald Prize.
Meyne was stunned when his work won the Packing Room Prize. Above all, he hopes that his work inspires people to re-connect with the messages he delivered in his monologue on Q&A; an uncompromising call to arms for real change to Indigenous rights.