Peter Berner Stop pouting, you’ve had your turn

The person pouting in Peter Berner’s painting is the artist himself.

‘I’ve seen many expressions depicted in portraits: contemplative, heroic, humble, knowing, wry, comic, sad… but never pouting,’ he says.

‘I thought it was time to change this, because there seems to be a lot of pouting going on at the moment. A lot of people are having a pout about something. So, as this is a self-portrait, what I ended up with was a painting of a middle-aged white man pouting. Given there’s a lot of chat about how middle-aged white men aren’t handling the changes to the status quo, some would say you can’t get much more 2021 than that.’

Born in Singapore in 1963, Berner came to Australia with his family the following year. A graduate of the National Art School, he is a painter, cartoonist, stand-up comedian and television and radio presenter, whose credits include the political satire Backberner on ABC-TV.