As Julia Gutman’s maverick collage wins the Archibald prize, the award is truly in the hands of a new generation
Retrieved on:
Friday, May 5, 2023
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Montaigne, the performing name of singer Jessica Cerro, is a longtime friend of Gutman.
Key Points:
- Montaigne, the performing name of singer Jessica Cerro, is a longtime friend of Gutman.
- It is fair to say that, until recently, Gutman’s portrait would probably not have been hung, let alone won, the Archibald Prize.
- Read more:
'I think Archie would be pleased': 100 years of our most famous portrait prize and my almost 50 years watching it evolve
Self-contained and vulnerable
- The pose shows the artist as both self-contained and vulnerable, hugging one knee to her body, her feet bare and open.
- The collage moves into paint, but the paint has been scratched so from a distance it looks as though it, too, is collage.
- Behind the figure a stitched in translucent panel reveals the struts supporting the painting’s stretcher: simultaneously revealing and concealing.
Painting the music
- Inma, which was awarded the Wynne Prize, is a visual celebration of the music he feels in the song and dance of this place of his childhood.
- He then led them in the song that is described in his gloriously complex and rhythmic painting.
- That honour goes to Doris Bush Nungarrayi, the senior Luritja artist who was awarded the Sulman Prize for her painting Mamunya ngalyananyi (Monster coming) – a painting showing Mamu, the shapeshifting malevolent spirits that haunt the Anangu.