Sally Robinson Antony Walker

Antony Walker is a young Australian conductor. Musical director of the Sydney Philharmonia Choir for several years, he has also conducted for Opera Australia and for many of Australia’s symphony orchestras. He is currently working at the Welsh National Opera.

Sally Robinson had seen Walker conducting a few times, live and on television, and was struck by how energetic and joyful he always appeared to be. She made initial contact with him when he was back in Australia briefly over the Christmas holidays. Asking him to wear to the sitting what he would normally wear to conduct, he arrived dressed totally in black. “I asked whether he sometimes wears a tuxedo and he said that he only ever wears absolute black because the only things he wants the orchestra and choir to see are his face and hands. That really struck me.”

For the sitting Robinson got Walker to conduct to one of his CDs. “It was quite a challenge but it was fun,” she says. “I actually found the audience a more difficult series of portraits than Antony himself.”

As for the dots, Robinson says she likes the surface texture that they make. “But the other thing is that we get to see most famous people either on television or in magazines or on the computer – so we get a pixilated view of them.”

Born in England in 1952, Robinson emigrated to Australia in 1960. She studied at the National Art School in Sydney then spent some years as a lecturer at the City Art Institute of Sydney. Since the late 1980s, she has worked full-time as an artist and designer.