Cathy Freeman at the 2000 Olympics. Steven Bradbury’s unlikely 2002 triumph. Australia’s audacious victory at the 1983 America’s Cup.
The historic wins of Australian sporting stars have been etched into the national identity, with many becoming the stuff of legends – but what about the losses?
The Melbourne artist Richard Lewer was awarded the $100,000 Basil Sellers Art prize on Friday for The Theatre of Sports: a 12-panel compendium of paintings that capture sports stars in the moments after very public – and very devastating – defeat.
There’s the disbelief and disappointment of martial arts champion Ronda Rousey after losing her title. There’s the bunched up figure of Sally Pearson, in agony after breaking her wrist in 2015. There’s the dejected defeat written on Ian Thorpe’s face, after a swimming loss. The work highlights the extreme lows that sports stars risk in their quest for triumph, and raises the question: what comes next for these people?
Lewer, who won the Blake prize in 2014 and the City of Albany prize in 2015, was drawn to the subject matter following Thorpe’s highly publicised struggle with depression. He began collecting clippings of public failure in sport – losses, injuries and disappointments – and examining elite athletes who suffered from extreme mental stress.
“Everyone focuses on the winner usually, but personally I find it more interesting to see how sportspeople handle themselves in their most vulnerable moments,” Lewer told Guardian Australia.
“For instance, how they recover from the agony and disappointment of coming second, third or even last, when they have spent their life focusing on the win.
“Their behaviour is out there for the public to see, so how they react or recover is a direct measure of their resilience, inner strength and character.”
The director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Kelly Gellatly, praised Lewer’s work as “a commanding, painterly ode to ... the emotional side of sport”, which captures the “devastation, disbelief, frustration and distress” of sports stars including Thorpe, Nick Kyrgios, Lance “Buddy” Franklin and Michael Clarke.
“[Lewer] investigates the very public downside of the dedication and commitment of professional sportsmen and women: the moment of defeat,” Gellatly said. “For Lewer, how this loss is handled – the mechanisms that sportspeople draw upon to deal with these situations – and the accompanying issues of anxiety and depression – are, in effect, more interesting than the loss itself.”
More than 240 artists from around Australia submitted entries for the biennial contemporary art prize, which is themed around “art and sport”. Judged by a panel led by the philanthropist Basil Sellers AM, the finalists included Abdul Abdullah, Fiona McMonagle, Shaun Gladwell and Kate Daw.
• The finalists of the Basil Sellers Art prize will exhibit at the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne until 6 November.
