2023 Archibald a portrait of Australian artwork

By Liz Hobday

THE $100,000 Archibald Prize is a troublesome one to name, and the 2023 subject makes this particularly so: it might be simpler to choose the winner of the Melbourne Cup.

There are 57 finalists hung by the Artwork Gallery of NSW out of 949 entries in whole, and that’s only for the Archibald.

It’s one in every of three prestigious artwork prizes to be introduced Friday – there’s additionally the $50,000 Wynne Prize for panorama portray or figurative sculpture and the $40,000 Sulman Prize for topic, style or mural works.

A number of the Archibald contenders embrace “Hallowed Be Thy Identify” by Marikit Santiago, an image of the artist along with her three youngsters rendered in acrylics, home paint and gold leaf.

It’s a portray about her expertise as a Filipina-Australian and her resolution to vary her youngsters’s surname to her personal.

There’s additionally Danie Mellor’s “A portrait of intimacy”, a portrait of gallerist Gene Sherman after the loss of life of her husband Brian Sherman in 2022.

A portrait of NZ-born comic Cal Wilson by Cairns-based artist Andrea Huelin has already been introduced because the winner of this 12 months’s Packing Room Prize – referred to as the “kiss of loss of life”, as a result of no artist has received it and gone on to take out the Archibald.

Whoever wins, these competitions are a bellwether for Australian arts, with even the numbers including to the image, even when the Archibald specifically is usually dismissed as an entire lot of fuss about not very a lot.

For the primary time in 2023, there are extra works by ladies (30) than males (27) chosen as Archibald finalists.

Throughout all three competitions there are extra entries than ever from Aboriginal artists, with 101 entries in whole and 38 chosen as finalists.

The work will likely be exhibited on the Artwork Gallery of NSW from Could 6 to September 3, after which tour till June 2024.