Brisbane Portrait Prize: Entries close, $90,000 prize money on offer

Take a sneak peek at entries in this year’s Brisbane Portrait prize, before the contest closes this week.

Sarah Hickey with her subject Anita Heiss and painting that is entered in the Brisbane Portrait Prize. Pictures: Steve Pohlner

When artist Sarah Hickey met celebrated Indigenous writer and academic Anita Heiss something just clicked.

“She had so much energy and she’s so authentic and funny,” Hickey says. “I couldn’t stop laughing.”

And she knew she had to paint her for the Brisbane Portrait Prize last year. Which she did without making the finalists list.

“I was so angry that I was rejected,” Hickey says. But don’t get angry, get even, she figured, and the rules allowed her to enter again which she has done.

“Each year the judges are different so I hope I have a chance this time,” Hickey says.

Sarah Hickey, her subject Anita Heiss and painting that is entered in the Brisbane Portrait Prize (again) with entries closing Friday – Photo Steve Pohlner

Her powerful portrait, painted at her studio at Mt Gravatt East, is called In Residence – Portrait of Dr Anita Heiss. Heiss lectures at UQ and is an acclaimed author whose much loved book Tiddas is going from the page to the stage at La Boite for this year’s Brisbane Festival next month. She says she was impressed by Hickey’s portrait.

“For a start it looks like me,” Heiss says. “She’s painted me as a sovereign Wiradjuri woman who has power within my own realm. I was completely blown away when I saw it.”

It features Heiss in a ball gown with a possum skin shawl over the top and is one of around 400 entries this year with 70 to be chosen for the finalists list and exhibition at the Brisbane Powerhouse. Once the finalists are announced on September 17 voting opens in The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Award.

This year there is the usual mix of well and lesser known folks and as with last year and the years before people will either be chuffed they have been chosen as subjects or miffed that they haven’t.

Her Excellency The Honourable Jeannette Young, by Zhi Peng Wu

Brisbane Portrait Prize director Anna Reynolds says she expects this year to be the best yet.

“There are many of the themes we saw last year,” Reynolds says. “Lots of self-portraits, portraits of families, interiors, pets, and reflective pieces, some showing the isolation and difficulty of the pandemic. We have a range of famous faces, and also some not so well known.

“There‘s Troy Cassar-Daly, Jaguar Jonze, Michael Slattery, who was a commando medic in the Australian Army, two of Queensland Governor Jeanette Young, one of Professor Ian Frazer, poet Anthony Lawrence, Agro and Jamie Dunn, again.

Girl On The Bass Guitar – Emma Sheppard, by Lesley Wengembo

“There’s a portrait of performer Emma Sheppard – from the Brisbane band Sheppard – also in the mix. Her sister Amy was previously depicted in 2019 by last year’s Lord Mayor Prize-winning artist Beth Mitchell.

“Submitting artists have come from all walks of life and include Brisbane local Stephen Tiernan, a Queensland police officer who took up painting back in 2014 after sustaining an injury at work. The Brisbane Portrait Prize is a great opportunity to bring such a wide range of artists together and for us all to appreciate the beauty of their work.

“I can say we seem to have a large number of emerging artists, and some who will seriously make a splash once their work is known.”

There’s around $90,000 in prize money up for grabs across a number of categories with the $50,000 Lord Mayor’s Prize the most coveted.

Troy Cassar-Daley by Wayne Budge

The chief judge this year is Lisa Slade, assistant director of the Art Gallery of South Australia with finalists judges Jonathan McBurnie, director of the Rockhampton Museum of Art and Professor Cindy Shannon, Pro Vice Chancellor (Indigenous) from Griffith University deciding who makes the cut before the final judging.

Winners will be announced on October 5 with The Courier-Mail People’s Choice award to be announced October 17.

brisbaneportraitprize.org