A portrait of the Indigenous actor Jack Charles has taken out the 2017 Archibald prize people’s choice award.
Painter, comedian and author Anh Do’s portrait was announced as the winner at the New South Wales Art Gallery on Wednesday.
“Jack’s a special human being, to be through everything he has been through and to become a well-loved, well-respected mentor, I find him inspirational,” Do said following the announcement.
Do revealed the first thing he ever heard about Charles was that he was an “esteemed actor, former heroin addict and jailbird, member of the stolen generation, gay man and latter-day Indigenous activist”.
He later captured Charles in paint in a Sydney studio, in a session many saw from the comfort of their living rooms while watching ABC TV’s Anh’s Brush with Fame. The work became the basis of his Archibald award-winning portrait.
Do has paid tribute to Charles’ tumultuous story in each brushstroke, with insects in the paint a nod to the time his subject spent as a homeless man, and a hologram of a unicorn and its mother a symbol of his loss.
“Jack is a member of the stolen generation, taken away from his mum at a very young age and Jack shared with me the fact that he spent a lot of his life searching for his mother, or the love of a mother, and how it was an impossible void to fill,” Do said.
“Hence I stuck the image of a unicorn and its mother in the painting – a unicorn being a creature impossible to find.”
Despite sharing the sad parts of his life story as he was painted, Charles said the experience in Do’s “sexy little Sydney studio” had been a “hoot”.
“I count him as one of the best extractors of information, from his engaging smile, wit, genuine interest and listening to the dribs and drabs of my story, my reason for living,” he said in a statement. “I’m extremely chuffed to be counted as one of Anh Do’s mates.”
Do will receive a $3,500 cash prize for the win, though at the end of the day he said what mattered most was whether Charles liked the finished product.
“I was happy with the painting when I finished and then I showed Jack, and more importantly he was happy, and now that people like it as well – icing on the cake,” he said.
The $100,000 Archibald prize was awarded this year to artist Mitch Cairns for a portrait of his partner and fellow artist Agatha Gothe-Snape.
Announcing the award in July, the Art Gallery of NSW’s board of trustees – who judge the prize – also highly commending Jun Chen’s portrait of Ray Hughes.
The Archibald prize, which received 822 entries in 2017, is awarded each year to a portrait “preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics”.
• The Archibald prize is on at the Art Gallery of NSW until 22 October 2017
