Matt Bissett-Johnson, No-Sferatu, 2024, 40.5 x 50.5cm, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Watson Arts Centre.
Satire takes many forms in Australian art with this year’s Bald Archy Prize appearing more as an undisciplined satirical romp where the bad and the ugly occasionally share the space with the good and competent. It is not a carefully curated exhibition of finely executed portrait paintings, but one designed to amuse and produce laughter.
Satirical portraits have a long ancestry in art and Australian art. Artists who quickly spring to mind include Phil May, Will Dyson, Norman Lindsay and Noel Counihan. The great William Hogarth once defined the satirical portrait as a “species of subject which may be placed between the sublime and the grotesque” and, in Canberra, it is the grotesque that is the clear winner.
Entrants’ chances of making it as a finalist in the Archibald Prize in Sydney is about five per cent, while the chances of making the final cut in the Bald Archy is about 90 per cent. Generally, those who missed out this year didn’t read the entry form closely enough and made themselves ineligible. The Archibald is selected and decided by the 11 trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW, the Bald Archy is decided by a pet sulphur-crested cockatoo who squawks at the winning entry. The Archibald Prize weighs in at $100,000, the Bald Archy at $10,000 and is an acquisitive prize.
Chris Roe, Fury Road, 68.5 x 80.5cm, 2024, acrylic on paper on board. Photo: Watson Arts Centre.
The most vicious and, to some extent, most entertaining portraits are of Peter Dutton and Gina Rinehart. Cartoonist and filmmaker Matt Bissett-Johnson’s No-Sferatu shows Mr Dutton as a creepy vampire who will suck the blood of anyone he encounters. Chris Roe casts Mr Dutton as a bald-headed War Boy on Fury Road (Mad Max: Furiosa). I don’t know which I found scarier, Dutton as a vampire or as a violent thug.
Lesley Fitzpatrick, Gina’s Golden Girls, 2024, 76.5 x 10.2cm, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Watson Arts Centre.
In Gina’s Golden Girls, Canberra-based painter Lesley Fitzpatrick shows a supersized Ms Rinehart in a swimming pool on a somewhat squashed boxing kangaroo enjoying a cocktail with Olympic gold medals hung around her neck. She steals the limelight from the actual swimmers who won the medals seen in the background. If Rinehart sponsored the Olympic swimming team, this is certainly not a case of the patron keeping a low profile. But with power the patron wants a share of the glory.
Joanne (Jojo) Skillington, Miss Congeniality, 50.5 x 76.5cm, 2024, 76.5 x 10.2cm, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Watson Arts Centre.
Joanne (Jojo) Skillington, an Albury-based painter, conveys Ms Rinehart as Miss Congeniality. The unflattering portrait of the billionaire mining magnate places an emphasis on her bulk, her wealth and her vanity. By unsuccessfully pressuring the National Gallery of Australia to remove from display Vincent Namatjira’s unauthorised portrait of her, she scored the most famous own goal in Australian art. The portrait remained on display and her vanity was exposed.
Cynthia Mortyn, Special Skills, 61.0 x 81cm, 2024, 76.5 x 10.2cm, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Watson Arts Centre.
Rachel Gunn (raygun) – the breakdance academic who had mixed fortunes in the Paris Olympics and attracted a degree of vitriol – is treated more sympathetically by the artists in this exhibition. In her Special skills painting, Cynthia Mortyn suggests raygun can employ her moves to hang out the washing, while Jillian Soini in her Let’s Doo the Kangaroo parodies the performer for her most publicised move.
The line-up exhibits a crowded diversity with subjects including Senator Lidia Thorpe, Tom Gleeson, Costa Georgiadis, Nick Cave, Hugh Jackman, Nathan Cleary, Robert Irwin, Beccy Cole and Barnaby Joyce.
Any show in Australia that has the name Archibald in the title shares the Midas touch. When the Archibald exhibition tours the regional galleries, people come in record numbers. As the illegitimate and irreverent offspring of the Archibald, the Bald Archy tours the country for 10 months after its opening in Canberra and draws healthy crowds of viewers eager to see the heroes and villains who have been on the public stage being brought down a notch or two. If the show could attract a stronger field of participants, there would be a better mix of the sublime amongst the grotesque.
Jillian Soini, Let’s Doo the Kangaroo, 40.5 x 51cm, 2024, 76.5 x 10.2cm, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Watson Arts Centre.
The Bald Archy Prize 2025 is on display at the Watson Arts Centre (Canberra Potters), 1 Aspinall St, Watson, until 23 March. The gallery is open from 10 am to 4 pm Tuesday to Saturday, and 11 am to 3 pm Sunday (closed Monday). Admission: $8 entry; $6 concession (card only). The winner will be announced on 21 March.
Loading ...
