Paula Dawson Sleeping man

‘In a way he chose me,’ says Paula Dawson when asked why she chose Australian politician, writer and lawyer Barry Jones as her Archibald subject. ‘I’ve known him for about 13 years but he’s been reading drafts of my PhD so it feels more like 100 years!’

An artist and university lecturer who specialises in the creative application of technology, particularly holography, Dawson is interested in the role of technology in our society as is Jones. Jones’ book Sleepers awake!: technology and the future of work, published in 1982, was an international bestseller.

Dawson’s portrait of Jones was partly influenced by her latest commission: a holographic shrine for St Brigid’s Church in the Sydney suburb of Coogee for which she evoked the sacred heart by depicting the light that emanated from the body of Christ.

In her portrait of Jones she shows him with a square halo (made by lighting explosive fuse wire), having discovered during her research into halos and light emanations that these were given to living people of great intellectual force. Square halos also appeared in mosaics, hence the mosaic like quality of Jones’s hair. His head is made out of photocopied paper, the outline of his body from shredded paper: all artefacts. The holograph that peeps through the middle of his body reads ‘sleeping when exhausted’ in Jones’ handwriting. Jones is surrounded by pages from his books Sleepers awake! and The dictionary of biography.