The Weekend Australian (
Diver Dan's brush with stardom.(Local)
Byline: SUSAN McCULLOCH-UEHLIN * Visual arts writer
ACTORS Sigrid Thornton and David Wenham may have shared
screen credits on the
ABC's top-rating SeaChange.
But this week Wenham got the lead part when his portrait, by
Adam Cullen won the $35,000 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.
``I have to say it is my personal pick,'' said Edmund Capon,
director of the
gallery. ``It is fresh and
spontaneous and has a marvellously direct quality,
yet it is also shows introspectivity and intelligence.''
The more sombre quality, says the
artist, did not emanate from the actor's
portrayal of the laidback Diver
Dan, but from his starring role as a
psychopathic killer in The Boys, a
film loosely based on the murder of
woman Anita Cobby.
``He is absolutely incredible in this,'' says Cullen, 35.
``In my opinion he
is the best actor of his
generation. What particularly resonates with me is
the way he is able to project a
powerful intensity in an extremely economical
way. ``This unsentimental quality
is what I try to achieve ... I try to
deliver a lot of intensity without an excess of action.''
Although the actual painting took only two sittings over two
weeks, it evolved
over more than a year. The two
first met for drinks after Wenham finished his
nightly performances in the play Art.
``The first drawings I did of him were on the back of bar
coasters and
cigarette packets,'' Cullen says.
``I believe that getting to know someone's
character is as important as the actual painting.
Cullen -- whose work includes installation, video and film
-- believes his
Archibald success will draw flak from contemporaries who
regard the prize as
mainstream and conservative.
``But the real conservatism is staying within the categories
of art and not
moving from one to the other. I
think it is wonderful that an artist like
myself is chosen to even hang in a show like this, let alone win it.''
Cullen's win was largely greeted at yesterday's media
launch, with approbation
-- in contrast to the controversy
and debate that has often marked the
79-year-old prize.
But Capon says: ``I bet when the public come in there'll be
comments like, `My
five-year-old could have done that'.''
John Dahlsen won the $10,000 Wynne
Prize for landscape art with Thong Totems,
comprising five 2m towers of
decomposing thongs that had been gathered by the
artist over three years from
The $10,000 Sulman Prize was won
by abstractionist John Peart and the $10,000
Dobell Drawing Prize went to Nick Mourtzakis.
And Another Thing -- Page 20
The director's diary
Edmund Capon, director of the Art Gallery of NSW, kept a
diary during
Archibald week. Read his private thoughts in Monday's paper.
`There is an extraordinary number
of elderly male nudes. Flaccid members
abound. Well, that's the problem.
They don't ... bound, I mean, they simply
hang, lost, unloved and rather
pointless'