NSW:Fear and loving key to top art prize

AAP General News (Australia)
08-10-2010
NSW:Fear and loving key to top art prize

SYDNEY, Aug 10 AAP - The fear of losing a child has won Australia's richest portrait
prize for Brisbane based artist Michael Zavros.

Zavros has been awarded the $150,000 Doug Moran National Portrait prize for his work
titled Phoebe is Dead/McQueen.

The work shows his five year old daughter Phoebe, lying perfectly still and draped
in a scarf designed by Alexander McQueen.

It is not clear if she is dead, or pretending to be dead.

Zavros admits the work is confronting.

But it is also "quite playful", he told reporters at the State Library of NSW on Tuesday.

"It was important that her cheeks were rosy, that there was a flush of life in this
body and that there was always a question, that this child could be playing dead, as she
does constantly ... I wanted to make sure that that element was there."

On a darker note, Zavros said the portrait revealed deep-seated insecurities he had
felt since becoming a parent.

"I think our children make us incredibly vulnerable to love and to all sorts of things
I could never have imagined," he said.

"That also exposes you to the possibility of loss."

The Alexander McQueen scarf symbolises the brevity of life, following the designer's
suicide earlier this year.

Justin Cooper's "wonderfully eccentric graphic piece", titled Blossom Cooper was highly
commended, as was a self-portrait by Robin Eley.

For the second consecutive year, Sydney photographer Dean Sewell was awarded first
prize in the Open section of the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize for his work titled
Cockatoo Island Ferry.

He wins $80,000 for the black-and white work.

Photographic judge Stephen Dupont said this year's photos "opened up an incredible
window into life in this country".

He had asked not to see the names of the photographers or their statements while judging
their work, he said.

Raoul Slater's photo, Naomi and Currawong, was highly commended, as were Dan O'Day's
This Way, and Hannah Robinson's Morning in the Squat.

Russell Shakespeare was also praised for his work titled Wellington Post, and Vikky
Wilkes for her portrait, Mollie.

All the works are on display in the Moran Prizes exhibition at the State Library of
NSW until September 5. Entry is free.

The portrait prize was first awarded in 1988 and the photographic prize was first awarded
in 2007.

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