Barrister gets hung on the wall of Sydney gallery

The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes
Gallery of New South Wales
Until September 29

Australia has a knack of reminding itself of its convict past in the most unusual ways, this time at a portrait award.

The annual Adam Portrait Award held in Wellington rarely attracts great interest and controversy. It is a valuable show highlighting some of the better local portrait and realist artists but it does not have hordes attending and there are no front page headlines announcing the winner.

But in Australia the announcement of the winner of the Archibald Portrait Award with its $100,000 prize appears to attract as much fervent debate as the Melbourne Cup.

The Archibald Prize, first awarded in 1921, is Australia’s favourite art award, and one of its most prestigious. Awarded to the best portrait painting, it’s a who’s who of Australian culture – from politicians to celebrities, sporting heroes to artists.

The Wynne Prize, held at the same time, is awarded to the best landscape painting of Australian scenery, or figure sculpture, while the Sulman Prize is given to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project in oil, acrylic, watercolour or mixed media. Each year, the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW judge the Archibald and Wynne, and invite an artist to judge the Sulman. This year’s judge was Lindy Lee.

This year the winner was controversial for all the wrong reasons. Nigel Milsom was jailed for an armed robbery in 2012. That same year he had won the Sulman prize and while in prison also won the Doug Moran prize.

The big surprise is that his winning portrait titled Judo House pt6 (the white bird) is of criminal barrister Charles Waterstreet who had Milsom’s conviction overturned last year. Mr Waterstreet is said to have been the inspiration for hit ABC television series, Rake.

But probably the biggest surprise is the portrait itself. If you were trying to present your brief in the best possible light as some great fiery, intellectual or sage upholder of the law, one might expect something heroic. But no, this portrait is a vision of an avenging Dracula.

It’s a big painting, probably the biggest in the show and it’s a black painting, the lawyer's black robes against a black background. The only bits of white are the face and the hands. He looks like an angry Michael Hill and his hands are like talons, so he is more avenger than rescuer. The other works in the exhibition range from the incredibly detailed realism of Jason Benjamin’s “I sat by the river. I waited by the road,” a large closeup of a brooding face through to the quick impressionistic work of Nigel Milsom (him again) by Mathew Kentman.

Other impressive works included Mitch Cairns' portrait of Peter Powerditch, which was both a caricature and a work which had insight into character.

The judges for the Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting and Figurative Sculpture this year have been incredibly brave,  awarding the prize not only to a photograph but the smallest work in the show at about 10cm x 10cm.

The work Biophilia by Natasha Bieniek of a formal public garden is like a miniature Karl Maugham painting, achieving everything that the much larger landscapes attempted. Several of the works in this exhibition look back to colonial times with a 19th century feel to them as with “Terra Nullis” by Celia Morgan and “Alpine Transect” by Philip Wolfhagen.

There were also a number of works that appeared to draw on Asian influences although the artist themselves were not Asian, There was Viola Dominello’s ”On the river”, a study of a river and mountain range on the folded pages of a book and Susan J White’s “Approaching Storm” reminiscent of Chinses landscape paintings. The Sulman Prize was won by Jason Phu for “I was at yum cha when in rolled the three severed heads of Buddha: Fear, Malice and Death” a work which features tests in Chinese and English that could be the lines from a rapper's song trying to link various cultures.

John Daly-Peoples was a guest of Destination New South Wales

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