Pat Hoffie’s tribute to her daughter’s courage has made the cut for the Archibald Prize
A Brisbane artist has made the Archibald Prize finalists in her first attempt, with a piece that salutes her daughter’s resilience in the face of tragedy.
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Brisbane artist Pat Hoffie has never entered the Archibald Prize before, but inspired by her daughter Visaya she has made the cut on her first foray.
The finalists were announced this morning, along with the news that this year’s Packing Room Prize was won by Kathrin Longhurst for her portrait of the singer Kate Ceberano.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales also revealed the finalists in the Archibald Prize for portraiture, the Wynne Prize for landscape painting and the Sulman Prize for genre painting.
Hoffie’s entry, Visaya in a c-collar, is a moving work referring to her daughter Visaya’s freak accident when she was run over by two trains in New York early last year, tragically losing both her legs.
Her mother Pat an acclaimed artist and academic, rushed to be with her, and the courage of both has been highly visible over the past year as Visaya, who also survived COVID-19, valiantly rallied and came home to Brisbane to inspire everyone with her resilience and positivity.
Visaya, also an artist, has recently had a successful exhibition in Brisbane, and the family is now having a well-deserved holiday in Tasmania. Speaking from there, Hoffie said she had never wanted to enter previously.
“I just never bothered before,” she said.
“But this painting is one from the heart. It’s a humble painting, and I’m a little surprised they picked it.”
Hoffie is sharing the limelight this year with five-time finalist, Chinese-born Brisbane artist Jun Chen, who has been the city’s best hope in the Archibald for some years.
He was runner-up 2017 with a fabulous portrait of art dealer Ray Hughes, and has also been a finalist with a portrait of educator Judith Bell, one of Queensland Ballet’s Li Cunxin, and last year’s portrait of his Brisbane art dealer Philip Bacon.
Jun Chen’s painting of his mate, fellow artist Joe Furlonger, has this year made the finalists exhibition, and will be on display from today at the AGNSW in Sydney, where the winners in all three prizes will be announced next Friday, June 4.
Jun Chen, 60, lives at Sunnybank Hills and has a studio in unfashionable Underwood, and he has a reputation for being one of Australia’s finest painters.
He says he’s happy to be back among the finalists, and is never deterred when he doesn’t win.
“It’s my job,” Chen says.
“I just keep going. I painted Joe this year because he’s my friend.
“We travel together sometimes.”
In fact Jun Chen is also a finalist in this year’s Wynne Prize with a landscape entitled Dried Bush, the product of a painting expedition to the Queensland Outback with his mate Joe Furlonger a few years ago.
The other Archibald finalist from Queensland this year is another Brisbane artist, Keith Burt, also a previous finalist and winner of the Brisbane Portrait Prize last year, and an artist whose shows now sell out.
He has painted acclaimed poet and academic Sarah Holland-Batt.
There were 938 entries in this year’s Archibald Prize and 52 were selected as finalists – 26 women and 26 men, the first time there has been such gender parity.
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