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Carterton Exhibition Centre
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Opening Hours:
Every day
10.00 am - 4.00 pm
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Location:
Holloway Street
Carterton
New Zealand
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Bookings and Information:
Jane Giles
06 379 6559
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email:
info@waiart.org.nz
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| Wai Art Portrait Awards 2009, Opening night speech |
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Pat White from Gladstone, Wairarapa, was the judge of the inaugural portrait awards. Below is the transcript of his speech.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, competitors. Good evening Mayor Gary.
I am Pat White, judge of the inaugural Wai Art Portrait Awards. There are 121 entries that have been submitted from as far a field as Whangareri Heads in Northland, to Dunedin in the South. There is an obvious desire for this sort of competition. The judgment required this evening is for one winner – by definition that does not mean one best portrait, a different judge would have a different winner. It is very important to make this point, as Wai Art have hung no unworthy entries, and there is always the next portrait exhibition, with another judge.
The paintings are of a high standard overall, and there could have been a different shortlist. On Thursday afternoon I selected a shortlist of ten finalists, and slept on my choice. I came back this morning and modified the list, slightly.
Others missed the cut that would have been in on another day. That short list committed me from there. Today I have revisited the exhibition to make the final call.
Paintings I have selected have the following attributes in some measure -
- Technical excellence, they use paint well, show compositional flare, visual focus and colour awareness.
- They show style - a personal touch or response to the subject by the artist, that in the end transcend the desire to obtain a pictorial likeness.
- I relate to the painting - because of the subject, the way it is painted, because something in it makes me stop for another look. I want the humanity of the subject to be there - good, bad, or indifferent. A good portrait has character, not caricature - a personality is multifaceted, and has responded to life.
Some paintings were excluded, even though aspects of the work was good, because I felt they may have been painted as copies of photographs, instead of works of art that have been finished with the source photos put to one side. That is where foreshortening of limbs and faulty perspectives enter work that is supposed to be representational. Some paintings have very carefully painted subjects and then the background has received a less studied treatment - the entire picture surface has to be given an equal reason for being there.
In the end I chose the one painting, as I was asked. An enigmatic work that makes me think, what is going on here? It has plenty to offer a second glance. I have to think about this work, it means more than meets the eye first time up.
Enough from me, I will now hand out certificates for the finalists. These are paintings that drew me back many times for another look.
My short list was:
- 2 Him Outdoors
- 17 Koro
- 25 Portrait of a young girl playing chess
- 35 Muse Meg & Bloko Annihilation
- 52 Westerly on the east side
- 68 Stuart
- 100 Rahab
- 116 My red dress
- 117 No to botox
- 118 Kellie
My wife Catherine and I were in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. You know how it is when you looked at pictures for a couple of hours – we were punch drunk and looking for a way out along massive corridors. We staggered along another line of masterpieces not looking at the works, round a corner and were stopped in our tracks. Beside a doorway a little portrait of an old man looked back at us – no longer tired, but speechless, I gazed into that old man’s face. I remember a woman telling me forty years ago in Hokitika about seeing that same painting. She realized she’d tears falling down her cheeks while standing there – I’d not really believed her. Now I understand. The painting was a Rebrandt self-portrait. That sort of honesty and self-knowledge is what we are all aiming for every time we look into the eyes of another subject we begin to paint.
In the end I chose the one painting, as I was asked. An enigmatic work that makes me think, what is going on here? It has plenty to offer a second glance. I have to think about this work, it means more that meets the eye first time up… and I hand you to Sandy McPhee to announce the winner.
Pat White.
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