I'm no expert on art and my tastes in portraits tends towards 'vanilla' rather than the abstract. I prefer portraits where you can make out who has been painted. I enjoyed this year's finalists far more than last year's when there were fewer identifiable images.
Even so I found this year's winner, Guy Maestri's portrait of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, too brooding for my liking.
I preferred Vincent Fantauzzo's portrait of Brandon Walters - the young actor featured in Baz Lurhmann's Australia - which won the People's Choice Award.
But if it were up to me I would have awarded the prize to Megan Roodenrys for her portrait of Australian footballer Ben Cousins for no other reason than that I could gaze upon Cousin's superb body endlessly.
Is that supposed to be Cousins in three different positions, or is he with two other people? It's hard to tell from the size of the photo.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I must agree with your assessment!
So agree Victor. Gurrumul already sounds sad enough. Don't want to see him looking sad. The portrait of Brandon is great.
ReplyDelete@wcs - It is Cousins in three different positions. Perhaps technically not really a portrait?
ReplyDelete