Portrait of artist Jason Phu wins Packing Room Prize

Artists Jason Phu and Abdul Abdullah met a decade ago at the iconic Sydney watering hole The Friend in Hand after an exhibition opening. Abdullah remembers Phu was wearing a suit.

They became instant friends, a connection cemented on Thursday when Abdullah won the Packing Room Prize for a portrait of Phu sitting atop a horse against the backdrop of a Central Asian steppe.

Packing Room Prize winner: Abdul Abdullah’s No Mountain High Enough is a portrait of Jason Phu.Credit: Art Gallery of New South Wales / Jenni Carter

Phu is a fellow painter and, as luck had it, was also named on Thursday among 57 finalists in this year’s Archibald Prize for his portrait of Hugo Weaving.

“Those who know Jason know he’s such a kind-hearted person,” Abdullah says. “He’s one of those who says what’s on his mind, but that unfiltered honesty is really appreciated, and he’s a truly unique character. You can see it in the way he makes art, there’s no contrivance in his making. He’s also quite silly and fiercely intelligent.”

In its 34th year, the Packing Room Prize is awarded a week before the naming of the official Archibald.

It’s judged by a panel of gallery staff who receive and unpack the artwork. Entries are assessed on their visual impact and artistic merit.

For the Archibald Prize, Abdullah painted Phu as a reluctant wandering hero, on horseback, riding into town to save the day.

“I painted his face and hand. The rest is a sort of digital collage of different images that I bought the rights to match them together. Then I got Jason to put his hands in and face in a particular way, then put it together.”

When Abdullah told his best friend of his idea, Phu had a couple of requests: “That it wasn’t too big so he could fit it in his apartment, I told him I will give him the painting afterwards. Then the other thing was that he wanted animals around him like a Disney princess.”

Announcing the packing room prize on Thursday, Alexis Wildman said judges had been drawn to Abdullah’s portrait of Phu from the day of its arrival.

“On a technical level this portrait is very well painted,” she said. “It really captures the essence of the subject with the image of a lone ranger, an intrepid jokester, or a quiet hero navigating the rocky terrain of today’s social climate.”

Abdullah, a seven-time finalist for the Archibald Prize, is based between Melbourne and Bangkok. He was not at the announcement. Neither was Phu.

“Jason said he couldn’t come today because he was visiting a friend’s dog,” Abdullah said. “If you go for a walk with Jason he is the type that will say hello to every cat and dog that we pass.”

Packer Alexis Wildman and new Art Gallery of NSW director Maud Page.Credit: Janie Barrett

All up, 139 works have been selected as finalists across the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025 with the winners to be announced next Friday: 57 finalists in the Archibald, 52 in the Wynne and 30 in the Sulman.

This year’s Archibald Prize finalists include a portrait of sisters Antonia and Nicole Kidman, painted on Christmas Eve, bundled together in a rug; activist Grace Tame; Australia’s favourite television gardener Costa Georgiadis; radio personality Jackie O in a blue ball gown; and author Kathy Lette.

Chris O’Doherty, aka Reg Mombassa painted himself pallid and ill in hospital with a nose tube.

Making a return to the finalist ring are former Archibald Prize winners Yvette Coppersmith (2018) and Vincent Namatjira (2020) with arresting self-portraits. Peter Wegner (2021) has painted defamation lawyer Sue Chrysanthou, while Mitch Cairns (2017) painted fellow artist Stephen Ralph and Fiona Lowry (2014) painted Ken Done.

Other finalists include a portrait of Yvonne Weldon painted by Luke Cornish (aka E.L.K.) and Christophe Domergue.

Blood, Sweat and Tears combines Cornish’s photorealistic stencil artistry interwoven with Domergue’s innovative “peeling” process, which captures urban and industrial surfaces. Weldon is the lone politician sitter to make it as a finalist on federal election eve.

Entries for the Archibald Prize must be painted in the past year and from life, with artists meeting their subjects face-to-face for at least one sitting.

The $50,000 Wynne Prize is awarded to the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figurative sculpture. The $40,000 Sulman Prize is presented to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project.

Maud Page, the gallery’s first female director in 154 years, noted that female finalists outnumbered male finalists across all prizes for the first time.

Finalists in all three prizes will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from May 10 to August 17, 2025.

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