The annual showcase of the city’s talented artists and their sitters once again took over the Turbine Platform at the Brisbane Powerhouse. Curated by Simone Linssen (Artisan Queensland) and judged by Lisa Slade (Art Gallery of South Australia), Jonathan McBurnie (Rockhampton Museum of Art), Professor Cindy Shannon (Griffith University), this year’s exhibition embraced more digital artworks compared to the previous year.
Speaking to exposé, Linssen said: “There was a digital winner last year. It’s usually a trend, if something wins it gives artists the confidence to enter something along those lines the next year.”
A couple of portraits also paid homage to works from the past, particularly William Dobell’s ‘The Cypriot’, as can be seen in Richard Longinnous’ and Leonard Brown’s entries.
Watch exposé‘s exploration of the Brisbane Portrait Prize exhibit below:
On this year’s curation, Linssen said: “We had about ten or fifteen works less than last year. Which meant we were able to give a lot of works their own walls and didn’t have to worry too much about cramming images together.”
Regarding her process, Linssen told us that the challenging aspect of curating a prize gallery is having it present as a standard exhibition whereby all the artworks are hung according to “their own individual merit”. She added: “You’ve got to be mindful as well with stories […] taking on board what the works are saying and being respectful to that.”
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View the Brisbane Portrait Prize online gallery here.
