Photography | Brian Rope
Various Artists
| Beforehand – the private life of a portrait
National
Portrait Gallery | Until 14 February 2021
Beforehand – the private life of a portrait is about the backstories behind iconic works from the NPG collection and the creative and social process of making a portrait. It features excellent works in a variety of media, including thirteen photographic prints.
Entering the exhibition, the first things visitors can read is about storytelling. We are told a portrait captures a person’s presence in time as well as space; tells a story about lived experience – at times conveying a sense of the subject’s past and future. I suspect the vast majority of portraits, including selfies captured by smart phones today, tell very little about lived experience. However, those who are serious about creating good portraits would do well to think about telling their subject’s stories.
The exhibition takes us to the creative journeys behind the portraits, showing us working drawings, studies, scrapbooks, sketches and footage taken in studios or on location. Interviews with artists and sitters tell us much more; revealing relationships and connections between the two parties that generated the story being told.
An interview with champion woodchopper David Foster provides an excellent example of storytelling. Foster is pictured before a tree that he says has witnessed all the years of his family and the legacy of their championships. Photographer Jacqui Stockdale responds “Wow, what the tree saw” and uses that as the title for her image. The collaborative nature of their relationship produced a portrait capturing the essence of Foster’s story.
| Collection: National Portrait Gallery. Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018. |
Greg Weight’s portrait of contemporary artist Lindy Lee shows her standing within one of her own installations. Weight is present with Lee and has captured her much as he might capture a landscape, connecting us with her creativity.
Lindy Lee 1995 © Greg Weight
| Collection: National Portrait Gallery. Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program. |
Ian Lloyd has also photographed leading artists throughout Australia. His portrait of the acclaimed indigenous artist Gloria Petyarre was taken as she applied layer on layer of dots on a canvas. The resultant image is remarkable, revealing clearly who she is: “an Anmatyerre woman from the Atnangkere country, near Alice Springs”. It is her country, her family’s country, the country she loves. Lloyd shows how his subject has touched and shaped many others.
 |
Gloria Petyarre 2005 © R. Ian Lloyd
| Collection: National Portrait Gallery. Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program. |
When cyclist Anna Meares and photographer Narelle Autio met ahead of their shoot, both were delighted to learn that neither wanted Meares wearing lycra or riding her bicycle. Both wanted an image of who she was, rather than what she did. The image taken amongst the trees and rocks in the Adelaide Hills clearly shows something of her toughness; the dress she wears shows her femininity.
Anna Meares 2018 © Narelle Autio
| Collection: National Portrait Gallery. Commissioned with funds provided by King & Wood Mallesons 2018 |
Peter Brew-Bevan’s image
of the Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet, David McAllister, is
stunning. It most successfully portrays the elegant motion of ballet, whilst
delighting McAllister by showing what he describes as a “pensive moment”. The
image reveals much about Brew-Bevan as well. His own energy is a major part of
the shot’s energy, so it becomes a self-portrait of him as well as a portrait
of McAllister.
The Dance David McAllister 2016 © Peter Brew Bevan
| Collection: National Portrait Gallery. Commissioned with funds provided by The Stuart Leslie Foundation 2016 |
In a similar way, Hari
Ho’s portrait of Dadang Christanto is a document of a powerful moment of
performance in both of their practices. All who have seen Christanto’s Heads
from the North in the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden, will immediately see
and relate to Ho’s intentions here.
Most of us have followed Jessica Mauboy’s career, either closely or at least with some interest. David Rosetzky’s portrait splendidly conveys her energy. Every portrait in this exhibition reveals something of the stories of the subjects and it is well worth spending time with each work, thinking about what is revealed about lived experiences.
This review was first published in the Canberra Times of 30/1/21 here. It is also available on the author's own blog here.