‘I just drove’: Inside the frantic dash to get entries into coveted art show

It’s 3.55pm at the Art Gallery of NSW loading dock and tension is rising. Among the gathering of gallery staff, watches are being consulted as the time ticks down to 4pm, the Friday deadline for entries to this year’s Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes.

The packing room staff is well used to artists leaving it to the very last minute. There is even a story of one entrant sitting in the car park desperately drying a still-wet painting with a hairdryer before handing it over.

Lucky last: EJ Son.Credit: Janie Barrett

Alexis Wildman, one of the three technicians who select the Packing Room Prize, said it had been a “crazy week”.

“We’ve seen the full variety, from the tiniest work you’ve ever seen to the big, big wall fillers,” she said.

And, as usual on deadline day, the tempo of hopefuls arriving ticked up as the afternoon wore on, with queues of cars arriving to drop off their precious cargo.

Second-last through the door was Ray Vazid, who arrived with minutes to spare, having driven from his home in Williamstown, Melbourne, with a work that had been completed only at 12.30am on Friday.

It had been a fraught trip, with more than a few wrong turns, but first-timer Vazid was just glad to have made the cut-off.

“I’m not this guy at all,” he said when asked if he was typically a last-minute person.

Lucky last out of more than 2000 entrants was EJ Son, who sprinted through the car park a few minutes after 4pm with artwork Bloom, after driving across town from Summer Hill.

“I genuinely thought it was five [o’clock deadline],” Son said. “It makes sense for it to be nine to five, but it was eight to four, which is just kind of, I don’t know, I’m a bit confused about that.

“I just drove when I realised it was 4pm. I didn’t even do my dishes.”

Wildman said one theme she had noticed this year had been the number of multimedia entries.

Alexis Wildman at the end of her “crazy week”.Credit: Janie Barrett

“I think it’s been the largest entry of multimedia works I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Everyone is getting out of the box.”

As Wildman and her colleagues unpack the entries, they pull aside potentials for the Packing Room Prize.

“We kind of have to have a decision pretty quickly,” she said. “It’s not the easiest decision. And that’s the best part about art: everyone has a different opinion, and it’s kind of fun to pull them all together and see what people think.”

This is Wildman’s fifth year with the gallery, and she particularly enjoys seeing returning artists and the development of their work.

“It’s really nice to see familiar faces and how their work changes over the years,” Wildman said. “I’ve seen a couple of works come in, and they really transitioned in their painting, which is phenomenal.”

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