Michelle Hiscock The songwriter

Sydney-based artist Michelle Hiscock has lived in France and Japan, and is most known for her detailed, refined landscapes. For this portrait, she chose a subject closer to home, painting musician Don Walker, a songwriter and founding member of legendary Australian rock band Cold Chisel.

‘I like to work from life, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting people who live nearby in the hope of more frequent sittings. I’d often seen Don coming and going from his terrace at the top of my street, and so many of his songs are set in Kings Cross, near my studio,’ says Hiscock, a first-time Archibald finalist.

‘When you paint people who are good at their craft, you also learn about your own. There’s pathos and humanity in Don’s songwriting, light and shade, realism and poetry: the same qualities that give truth to painting.

‘I knew he’d be hard to catch in the lead-up to the launch of his new solo album, so as soon as he arrived for a sitting, I launched into the portrait.

‘We talked about painting and writing. Each word in a song needs to evoke a world of sensations, feeling and experience; in a portrait, each stroke seeks to build a likeness, but also to suggest the boundless world within.’