Nerissa Lea has won the 2004 Portia Geach Memorial Award, for her painting, The Sheik & Me, Self Portrait with Imagined Portrait of Chad Morgan after Frida Kahlo.
Central Coast resident, Nerissa Lea, is the 40 th recipient of this prestigious art prize, joining an esteemed list of Australian women painters who are honoured each year for their work in portraiture. Nerissa receives a prize of $18,000.
The winner was announced at 6pm , Wednesday 6 October at the National Trust
S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney . Wendy Sharpe, who won the award in 1995 and 2003, officially opened the exhibition.
On receiving the award, Nerissa said it was an amazing honour to win. “The Portia Geach is such a special and important award for Australian female artists”, she added. This year’s Award attracted a submission of 315 works - a record number. From this, an exhibition of 60 works have been selected showing the extraordinary breadth of styles and approaches to portrait painting.
In awarding the $18,000 prize, the judges remarked on the prevalence this year of a cool pictorial realism that refers to photography. “We appreciated that these weren’t mere copies of photographs but works which had impressive painterly qualities and a strong personal, imaginative aspect.
Nerissa Lea sets up confrontation in a studio interior between a po-faced female artist (self portrait) and the renowned Australian country music singer with a madcap grin. There is almost a Vermeer-like clarity of detail and texture which makes the strangeness all the more compelling.”
Commenting on her self portrait, Lea said
“After seeing Chad Morgan perform in Tamworth , I began thinking it would great to paint a portrait of him one day, after the famous Ingres portrait of Louis-Francois Bertin.
Mr Morgan told me he had not been painted since 1962. I told him I would be back to paint him when I got the portrait thing right. So several efforts later, I am getting closer.
This painting is a portrait of me in my studio with an imagined portrait of Chad Morgan finished on my easel. The composition and the size of the painting was inspired by the painting by Frida Kahlo titled, Self Portrait withPortrait of Dr Farrill 1951.”
The Judges also Highly Commended Face 3 (Self Portrait) by Catherine Fox.
The award was established in memory of early Australian painter and activist Portia Stranston Geach ( 1873-1959) for her achievement in both art and her active role in fighting for women’s rights.
The Portia Geach Memorial Award is a consistent presence in the Australian art scene, recognised and acknowledged internationally for playing the important role of promoting and developing the profiles of Australian female painters.
Nerissa Lea is represented by Australian Galleries in Sydney. |
