VOTE NOW: People’s Choice open for extraordinary Brisbane Portrait Prize
Finalists have been sorted and the personal stories behind the works are as brilliant as the works themselves. Judging is a few weeks away but you can vote now for the People’s Choice.
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If a picture is worth a thousand words the Brisbane Portrait Prize this year is a virtual library. Now in its fourth year it has settled in as one of the country’s most prestigious art prizes with more than $80,000 in prize money across a number of categories including The Courier-Mail people’s Choice Award of $7500 which gives the public a chance to decide what they think is the best work despite what the judges may think.
The stories behind the entries are fascinating and they tell personal as well as community stories. There were close to 600 entries this year with just 56 announced today as finalists and while the judging is still a couple of weeks away readers can start voting today in our award for the most popular among the punters.
In 2021 The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Award went to Jamie Preisz for his portrait Like A Rolling Stone which featured former Rolling Stones tour manager Sam Cutler.
Brisbane Portrait Prize director Anna Reynolds says the subject matter has changed a bit with fewer celebrities and sporting stars making it through to the finals this year.
“There were, of course, a lot of celebrity portraits submitted,” Reynolds says.
“It’s a really interesting bunch this year. I hope there’s something for everyone. A lot of the feedback told us that reducing the number of finalists would make a better exhibition.”
The exhibition opens at Brisbane Powerhouse on September 29 with winners announced on October 5 after chief judge, respected visual arts identity Lisa Slade, assistant director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, has cast an eye over the field.
The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Award winner will be announced on October 17 and there are some great works to vote for including a compelling self-portrait by young Brisbane artist Zoe Stuart entitled Time Flooding. Artistic selfies are very popular right now but hers is a self-portrait with a difference.
The 21-year-old Queensland College of Art, Griffith University graduate is in her painting, of course, while in the background Brisbane’s floods and flood history are explored.
“I consider my surroundings part of a self portrait,” Stuart says.
“I wasn’t personally affected by the floods at home but living in Brisbane you can’t help being affected in some way.
“I was waitressing at a restaurant at South Bank at the time and my workplace was flooded. I looked through photos of past floods and there were mountains of amazing images.” Some of which she has inculcated into her painting.
It’s the first time the young artist has entered the Brisbane Portrait Prize and she says she’s thrilled to have made the finals.
Another cracking self portrait is by acclaimed Brisbane artist Bianca Beetson. Her digital artwork work Maid, Monsters of Men depicts her in colonial military garb including a wig and a peaked cap and this is a creative response to family history research she has been undertaking recently, digging into her Indigenous and European heritage.
“As a woman of a colonial settler and Aboriginal descent it can be challenging to try and understand where you belong and how you begin to reconcile your own family history,” Beetson says.
“There’s a lot of humour and whimsy in this work. Humour is important to me and it’s quite deliberate.”
Beetson is Indigenous research director in the Indigenous Research Unit at Griffith University and, among other roles, she is on the Board of Trustees at QAGOMA and on the Queensland Government’s treaty committee.
She says Brisbane Portrait Prize is great for people working in portraiture and this is the second time she has entered.
“It’s nice to be short-listed,” she says.
“I did agonise over that work and it’s a bit defiant and smug but also humorous.”
Cairns-based Andrew Bonneau’s artistic selfie is an oil painting featuring him in Roman military uniform and it’s a stunning work.
“The three months I spent in Rome a few years ago as a fellow at the British School there must have influenced this self portrait,” Bonneau says.
“The immense tradition we have inherited from antiquity continues to affect my artistic choices. I enjoy the sense of acting that can be part of creating a self portrait.”
And while there are fewer celebrities in the finalists’ list this year they are still there. Wayne Budge’s artwork Troy Cassar-Daley is an example, a moving portrait of one of our favourite music makers.
This work is a digital photograph and shows Cassar-Daley in a pensive mood.
“Troy is one of Australia’s iconic Indigenous country music stars who has also been hit hard with cancellations of gigs and shows due to Covid-19,” Budge says. He shot his photo of the artist at home during the pandemic.
There are some other significant digital entries including a portrait of Queensland Governor, Dr Jeanette Young by Jono Searle, one of the artist Michael Zavros by Russell Shakespeare and David Kelly’s arty photo of Australasian Dance Collective star Tyrel Dulvarie is another beauty.
In the realm of painting there’s a lovely one of former People’s Choice winner, artist Jess Le Clerc and Leonard Brown’s portrait The Cypriot/Chris Gaynor, is colourful and art lovers will recognise it as a tribute to a classic William Dobell painting that hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery.
Brown, who won the prize’s top gong, The Lord Mayor’s Prize, in 2019 with his portrait of fellow artist Jordan Azcune, says his entry this year was sparked by nostalgia.
“As a 14 year old it was my habit to visit the Queensland National Gallery as it was called at the time, frequently, and the main attraction for me was William Dobell’s portrait of The Cypriot painted around 1940,” Brown says.
“One never forgets first loves.”
Veteran Queensland painter David Paulson’s finalist entry is one of the most colourful. Entitled Michael Eather Artist & Art Dealer, it’s a painting of one of Brisbane’s best known art identities who is an acclaimed artist and director of Fireworks Gallery.
“Michael has demonstrated an enduring obsession for the promotion and development of both traditional and contemporary Aboriginal art,” Paulson says. Paulson is just one of the significant artists who have made the cut this year including Monica Rohan, Pat Hoffie and regular Archibald Prize finalist Jun Chen, whose portrait of Leonard Brown has to be one of the main contenders this year.
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