Face Off

August 15, 2017 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | ART, AUSTRALIANIA, Ulalume | 0 Comments |

Our winner

NSW Art Gallery (August 2017)

The Varnished Culture has previously waxed acidic about the Archibald Prize, so it was with twitching, skeptical smiles that we traversed the crowded rooms of daubs of slebs. Wisely, the curators had again combined this well-known but somewhat debased portraiture competition with those for landscape painting or figurative sculpture (the Wynne Prize) and for subject, genre or mural painting (the Sulman Prize).

So we could admire something other than the mugs of B-listers, such as this very busy Australian copse by Nicholas Harding…

50

or this taste of Corot:

corot

or this nice slice of magic realism:

Boy

Of the portraits themselves, there was a predominant methodology to gladden the heart of Scratchy Impasto, and the usual mix of the good, the bad, and the ecchhh!

The good included:

Bell2

and –

wheelchair

and

knit

and:

bald

or:

seatwood

Or this:

Ayako

Andrew Bonneau, Portrait of Ayoka Saito

The bad (the ho hum) offered the likes of Lisa Wilkinson and her asymmetrical feet:

Lisa

Lisa Wilkinson by Peter Smeeth

and the lady painted with a trowel:

lady

And that tricky third category? We present a representative entry, without comment –

Che

(Something for a tee shirt) By David Griggs

We mentioned that, sans a portraitist of the likes of Rembrandt or Velasquez, the landscape and genre painting proved of greater interest.

arcady

Our day was made by Tim Storrier (“The Arcadian repose”) (above). Storrier is an artist based in Bowral, and has just [Oct. 2017] won the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize for his take on fellow-artist McLean Edwards, The Lunar Savant.

We also liked the superb agglomeration (below) by Juz Kitson:

mask

or this stylish meld of evening gown and ancient tree:

tree

and this little chap:

man

The exhibits were very well attended. If prizes draw them in, we guess that the more gongs the better!  Here’s some more nice things:

ROAD toothpaste

0 Comments


Leave a comment...

While your email address is required to post a comment, it will NOT be published.

Leave a Reply

© Copyright 2014 The Varnished Culture All Rights Reserved. TVC Disclaimer. Site by KWD&D.