Meyne Wyatt wins Archibald Packing Room Prize

The actor who hadn’t picked up a brush for 10 years is among 55 finalists for the Archibald Prize, announced next week.

Indigenous actor Meyne Wyatt with his Packing Room Prize-winning self-portrait at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion

Who knew that the angry young man who delivered a scorching monologue on the ABC’s Q&A three months ago, actor and playwright Meyne Wyatt, is also an artist?

Wyatt’s four-minute speech from his play City of Gold begins, “I’m always going to be your black friend, aren’t I?” — and goes on to rip into the casual and overt ­racism that confronts Indigenous Australians every day.

On Thursday, Wyatt’s talent as a portraitist was on display at the Art Gallery of NSW where he was named winner of the $1500 Packing Room Prize, a prelude to next week’s Archibald Prize.

GALLERY: See all 55 entries

And it was with his characteristic raised eyebrow that he welcomed the news he is the first Indigenous artist to win any prize associated with the Archibald.

“Hearing that it’s 99 years and I’m the first winner of an award is … interesting,” he said.

Wyatt said he was encouraged to paint, and enter the Archibald, by his mother, Sue Wyatt, who was a finalist in 2003 with her portrait of author Doris Pilkington. The lockdown gave him the time to focus on his painting.

The portrait shows Wyatt’s face emerging from a black background, contrasting the warm and serious sides of his personality. He said the man in the picture was “one and the same” as the man who delivered the speech on TV.

“That is the essence of me and my experience in Australia, my experience of dealing with racism, and talking about issues that need to be raised,” he said of his Q&A appearance. “Out of that came a (public) awareness and an education that was from me just talking about my experience.”

A record number of entries was submitted for the Archibald Prize, 1068, of which 55 have been chosen as finalists. They include portraits of such figures as comedian Magda Szubanski, journalist David Marr, fashion icon Maggie Tabberer and Labor leader Anthony Albanese.

The $100,000 Archibald Prize is the nation’s most-watched art award: last year’s exhibition comprising the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes brought 83,000 visitors to the gallery.

This year’s prize is announced on September 25, and the exhibition with social distancing will open on September 26.

Head packer Brett Cuthbertson, who has the controlling vote, was impressed that Wyatt hadn’t picked up a brush for 10 years before painting his portrait, and it was “bloody good”. “That’s what the Packing Room Prize is, you’re giving people a go,” he said. ­“People are having a crack at it.”