2021 Archibald and Sulman Prizes, Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Archibald is Australia’s most prestigious and oldest portraiture prize. In 2021, the centenary, Victoria Atkinson and Thom Roberts were two of 52 finalists, selected from over 900 entries.
Victoria Atkinson painted Federal Member for North Sydney, Trent Zimmerman, the first openly gay member of the House of Representatives. Inspired by their shared queer identity, she painted him with her signature vivid palette and titled the work Trent mango tree all the colours of the rainbow Trent. “When Trent came into Studio A, I did my portrait.” says Victoria. “I did sketches first. I maybe did four sketches in pencil on paper”. She added a mango tree to add something “special” for Zimmerman, and painted a kennel “for Trent’s dog Simba to sleep in.”
Thom Roberts chose to paint his “good friend”, Chair of Studio A and founder of the Arts Law Centre of Australia, Shane Simpson AM, whom he knows as ‘Adam’. “I wanted to do a portriff of Adam on a great big canvas” says Thom. Asked why he called the portrait ‘a portriff’ he says: “I do it Thom’s way”.
Thom’s A Portriff of Adam (Shane Simpson AM) - which sees Shane rendered with extra eyes and rounded eyeglasses - was selected as a hero image for the Prize. It was enlarged onto a banner and proudly hung at the entrance of the AGNSW for the duration of the exhibition.
Bookending the Archibald success was the selection of Mathew Calandra’s Stations of the Cross for the Sulman Prize exhibition. A watercolour, ink and coffee wash triptych, it is an interpretation of the Easter story (with an almost Postmodern spin).
“There was an Easter bunny carrying a cross” Mathew explains. “A big bad dog bit the rabbit’s leg. The bunny got a little bandage in the tree home. The bunny was wounded but recovered and came alive again.”
Months after the conclusion of the Prize, the Art Gallery of New South Wales acquired Stations of the Cross for their permanent collection. A purchase from such a leading Australian institution isn’t only a badge of great personal honour, but a guarantee that the work will continue to live on in the public domain.
This was Victoria, Thom and Mathew’s first time exhibiting in the Archibald and Sulman prizes respectively, and the acquisition of Mathew’s work in the Gallery collection is a major milestone. We are so very proud of their deserved success and can’t wait to see what next year brings.
The Salon des Refusés 2021, S.H Ervin Gallery
In the Salon des Refuses exhibition, Emily Crockford showcases her vibrant piece of Trent Zimmerman under the sun as the colourful lorikeets sing behind him. As Studio A’s local politician, Trent told Emily while sketching him that rainbow lorikeets were his favourite birds. Like the polychromatic lorikeets, Emily shared in an interview with Shervin Gallery – the art gallery that showcased her artwork – that Trent is also a very vibrant and friendly person like herself which was portrayed exquisitely in her portrait.
Emily paints Trent looking up at his favourite birds happily as the sun hits in a brilliant array of colours in her artwork. The portrait showcases Emily’s bold and diverse colours that have become a key piece in her artwork. Having her work showcased in the Salon des Refuses and chosen among thousands of other paintings that had not made it to the Archibald Prize this year was an extreme honour of Emily’s creativity.
Harbour Garden for Sydney Solstice at the Australian National Maritime Museum
As part of the inaugural Sydney Solstice festival (2021), Meagan Pelham, Lauren Kerjan, Daniel Kim and Annette Galstaun were commissioned to produce a large scale outdoor installation to sit harbourside at the Australian National Maritime Museum. They produced Harbour Garden a dazzling homage to the aquatic life that swim between the docks.
Original illustrations from these artists were refashioned into inflatable sculptures, each with an internal lighting rig. A turtle (known as ‘Punk Punk the supermodel turtle’), an octopus, starfish and seahorse - with kelp and coral - shone like beacons in the chilly nights and drew adoring crowds of all ages. Perhaps for the very first time, the meticulous paint and pencil work of these four artists could be admired in super-scale and in three-dimension.
The inflatables were produced in collaboration with the artists of Goldberg Aberline Studio, leading Australian specialists in producing inflatable public sculptures. Goldberg Aberline printed Studio A’s designs on resilient fabric made from recycled PET bottles joining our team’s advocacy for clean oceans and zero waste. Harbour Garden was also part of the Maritime Museum's commitment to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The museum offset the installation’s electricity use with solar power drawn from the roof of Wharf 7.
The festival also saw the debut of the moving image work Merman Metamorphosis by Studio A's Jaycee Kim and digital artist Christopher Haysom, with nightly screenings on the Maritime Museum’s rooftop. Merman Metamorphosis tells of a shape-shifting underwater creature who casts aside the shackles of gender norms. It’s the latest animated work in Jaycee’s stellar portfolio.
Photos: Cassandra Hannagan and the Australian National Maritime Museum
Butterfly Universe. Rainbow Plait., No Show at Carriageworks
2020 was the year to be inside our own towers. A year of retreating to local landscapes. To welcome 2021 Studio A artists Mathew Calandra, Jaycee Kim and Skye Saxon invited audiences to discover the expansiveness of their internal universes with Butterfly Universe. Rainbow Plait. The installation formed part of No Show, an exhibition at Carriageworks of eleven artist-led initiatives, curated by Aarna Hanley.
A tarot tent designed by Skye was the centrepiece of the installation. Guarding it was a monumental portrait of Madame Witch (aka Skye Saxon) by Mathew Calandra, encircled by a powerful rainbow plait designed by Jaycee Kim.
The three artists inhabited and performed in the installation throughout the exhibition. Madame Witch used her mystical connections to perform tarot readings for any weary traveller curious to know their future. Mathew, using pencil and paper, brought her magical universe to life in situ, and Jaycee invited audiences to collaborate and create their own rainbow plaits.
If you missed it, you can still have a virtual tarot with Madame Witch. Click here, if you're game...
Photographs by Zan Wimberley and Studio A
Project 2060: Homeward Bound
Project 2020: Homeward Bound (10-21 March 2021) was a major multi-venue curatorial initiative of Arts & Culture North Sydney celebrating the breadth of individual and collective creativity and resilience of artists working in the region.
Studio A were honoured to be curated into the feature exhibition HOMELY OFFERINGS!, which showcased 49 artists and collectives, and sought to explore the strange and familiar realms of domestic life, to reveal our myriad relationships with ‘home’ and each other in this new mid-pandemic world.
For the exhibition Arts & Culture remounted Studio A’s home series in the evocative tunnels of the nineteenth century Coal Loader. From a twirling disco house maquette to large-scale textiles and animated installations, the works of Emily Crockford, Annette Galstaun, Mathew Calandra, Daniel Kim, Guy Fredericks, Katrina Brennan, Phil Sidney, Thom Roberts and Victoria Atkinson revealed that ‘home’ is not physical but emotional, lying in our dreams and dream loves, families and pets, and city circle lines.
As part of Project 2060 Arts & Culture also presented IN FLIGHT at inTransit Art Space, an exhibition of works by Lauren Kerjan, Catherine McGuiness, Meagan Pelham, Lisa Scott and Phil Sidney inspired by the birds they encounter and love.
Photographs by Document Photography.
