The Trust Company

Australia’s most significant prize for celebrating the creativity of Australian female portrait artists, the Portia Geach Memorial Award (valued at $18,000), was won by Christine Hiller for her work The Old Painter.  Hiller is the second woman to have won the Award three times.  She first won 23 years ago in 1986 for a self portrait and then again the following year for another self portrait.

This year’s winner was announced on Thursday 24 September at a cocktail party held at the National Trust’s S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney.  The event was opened by Anne Fulwood. 

The Judging Panel also highly commended Louisa Antico’s That Special Place: Self Portrait and Grace Costanzo’s Split.

328 artists entered this year’s competition - one of the largest in the history of the Award - with 51 being selected for the exhibition.  To view this selection enter here.

Commenting on this year’s entries, the Judging Panel was impressed by the diversity and freshness evident in this year’s entries. To read the Judges’ Report enter here.

Judges for the 2009 Award were Mr Michael Desmond, Dr Lindy Lee and Imants Tillers.

The Portia Geach Memorial Award exhibition will be held at the SH Ervin Gallery, Observatory Hill, Sydney from 25 September to 8 November, 2009. Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm (closed on Monday).

A selection of this year’s works is available below for viewing.

Winner

Christine Hiller, The Old Painter 

Commenting on her win, Hiller said that she was completely surprised and deeply honoured to be awarded this year's Portia Geach Award. 

About Christine Hiller
Born on the 24th July 1948, Kit Alexander grew up in Hobart and was educated at Friends' School and at the Tasmanian School of Art.  With three small children she began painting watercolour portraits in the evenings and had her first exhibition in 1982. Her portraits have been hung in the Archibald and the Portia Geach Memorial Prize for female artists.

In 1986 and 1987, her portraits won the Portia Geach Award and were bought for the Robert Holmes a Court Collection. She was named Tasmanian of the Year in 1987. Kit has held 27 one-woman exhibitions in Tasmania. She has travelled to Canada, U.S.A., France and Mexico.

Apart from painting, she has completed more than 300 lino-cuts, many of Tasmanian wildflowers and birds; most are individually hand coloured.
She lives at Mt. Hicks on the N.W. Coast of Tasmania.

Highly Commended

Louisa Antico, That Special Place

Where dreamers dream and artists create
Where poets lay and hearts ache
Where flowers bloom
In one’s own room
Where virginity’s broken
In the depths of the ocean
Where my cats sleep
Where willows weep
Where memories dwell
In a treasured sea shell
In my mother’s eyes
Where the birds fly
To that special place.

Highly Commended

Grace Costanzo, Split

The idea for the painting titled “Split” came from seeing my reflection in two mirrors, one behind the other, with the back mirror a little more to the side of the front mirror.

Carole Best, Selbstbildnis Mit Juden Eucalyptus (Self Portrait with Young Eucalyptus) (After Egon Schiele)

This painting is based on a self portrait by Egon Schiele which I stood looking at for a very long time. I was bewitched by Schiele’s use of colour on the face, the wiped-out method of removing it and the brazen gaze of his expression.

My own version of that work is my first foray into using oil paint. I got scared half way through and went back to acrylic for the background parts. The thing I like most about it is the elongated neck and the distortion.

Prior to painting this piece my works were mainly monochromatic using charcoal and acrylic, and always positioned with the head fully facing the viewer, so I am pleased with the evolution it represents to my art making.

Joanna Braithwaite, Walk the Walk

“In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi human.  The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.” - Edward Hoagland

It is said that one dog year equals seven years of a human life. To the devoted dog owner the relationship seems too short and is therefore intense. Walk the Walk reflects on time passing and friendship between owner and dog. The word “owner” should be used loosely in my particular case because I often find that the pug is in charge.

Sophie Cape, Self Portrait

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." - Marcus Aurelius

 It was once the role of the painter to express the ideal. Now it is the business of the advertising industry to define our dreams. The use of photography and post-production to create homogenised and non-confrontational imagery seems contrary to the camera’s ability to capture unique and undeniable reality. When I began my self-portrait I sought only to interrogate the elements of light, colour and form in an objective way. As my investigation deepened I uncovered the potential of the painter’s role to express an unpolished truth, a beauty within the subject’s humanity.

Cathyann Coady, Three Generations

Three Generations is about the privilege of womanhood and my personal reflections watching my daughter blossom into a woman of her generation.   It’s about the role women play in establishing and nurturing family traditions.   We gain a tremendous amount of strength from those women in our families that have gone before us and led the way as mentors and role models, passing the baton as it were, to create a sound basis for women of the future.

Sinead Davies, If Only

It is an intimate experience painting a portrait from life, having the freedom to scrutinise and measure the sitter every minute for days and in this case, weeks. As a student I took this privilege for granted. Now I fully appreciate these rare opportunities. My subject Paul Motion was both committed and disciplined. Silence pervaded our working sessions and we only spoke during breaks, three times a day. Paul has my admiration and respect and I have his trust. If Only!

Melissa Egan, Self Portrait Discovering my Heritage

We live in a culture in which we have little reverence for our ancestors.  Our innate link to our heritage is surely an undeniable influence on our present lives. We cannot ignore inherent characteristics that have been passed down to us from previous generations.

Earlier this year, after being inexplicably drawn to painting bagpipes and kilts, I discovered the extent of my “Scottish heritage”.

The dichotomy between our ancestral homelands and Australia are worlds apart culturally, climatically and environmentally and yet we attempt to maintain our past roots. We surround ourselves with aspects of our heritage, animals and plants that are not always compatible with Australia’s indigenous species.

The painting shows a motley group of travellers, each relocated over past generations from different parts of the globe.  The fox, the dog, the horse and the recently discovered Scottish lassie all tell a story as they make their pilgrimage… first stop Cromarty.

Prudence Flint, Fried egg

In Fried egg I wanted to capture an everyday weariness, with the allegorical presence of the fried egg... a nod to potential self-regeneration.

Dale Kentwell, Telopea speciosissima "Mum had been severely reprimanded by the boys' soccer coach"

Moving away from the landscape to an interior in this work proved challenging.....however I remember standing in my studio feeling forlorn and rejected and thought "yes.....there is a painting in this".

Being a mum, busy with three boys and spending a lot of time in isolation as a painter means that I work with things that are immediate and accessible....the self portrait is fulfilling in that through it I can explore formal ideas and further develop these with a narrative.

In this work I wanted to penetrate that capsule that surrounds motherhood and explore the idea that our lives as mothers are so inexplicably intertwined with those of our children. Telopea speciosissima is the botanical name for the local waratah found in the vase.

Clare Thackway, Lay with Pigs You Smell Like Them

Quoting a saying frequently heard in my family, this painting deals with moral scrutiny and the fear of otherness. Coincidently, this year has seen global panic with swine signifying infection and contamination.

Lauren Wilhelm, Me, Stripped Back and Justifiably Anxious

My work represents the angst many women feel about the image they present to the world and their perceived value in the eyes of modern society as they approach middle age.  The act of painting myself as I am, a very private 40 year old woman, without the usual decoration or concealing effects, was quite confronting.  I reveal myself as a vulnerable creature with no protection, bluff or guise – a transparent, anxious animal in a fickle world.