Having begun in 2007, The Percivals is an open competition for artists. While showcasing the outstanding and innovative work currently being produced by Australian artists, the competitions have also given many emerging artists an opportunity to engage with portraiture and share their expressions of themselves and those close to them.
Exhibition Dates
23 April – 3 July 2022
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery will be closed on Saturday 23 April from 10am – 1pm. The Percivals will instead open to the public on Saturday 23 April for the VIP launch event starting at 6pm.
The gallery have an exciting launch event organised, including live entertainment, roving artists and a licensed area for the general public in front of Perc Tucker Regional Gallery. This area will not be ticketed and include a big screen to broadcast the winners announcements.
Launch
Saturday 23 April 6pm for 6:30pm speeches (winners announced)
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
VIP Session (invite only)
6 – 7:30pm
General Admission Session
7:30 – 9pm
Free, limited ticketed event – Booking details coming soon.
Judges Talk
Sunday 24 April
11 – 12pm
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery
Free, limited ticketed event – Booking details coming soon. For more information please visit the website.
Jenny Rodgerson’s figurative paintings are powerful. They embody both a stillness and a potent sense of inhabited presence. In her distinctive nudes and self-portraits, the contrast between nuanced light and shade combines with a bold sense of colour to arrive at an arresting resolve that captures the essence, or what Wittgenstein would call, the “whatness” of the subject.
Rodgerson’s eclectic degrees include a Bachelor of Commerce, a Diploma of Environmental Science and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. Currently, she works from her studio and lives in Castlemaine with her treasured dogs and chooks.
Prizes include the 2001 Australia Council New Work Development Grant, the 2016 Portia Geach Memorial Award and the Percival Portrait Painting Prize in 2018. Her self-portraits and figurative paintings are represented in private and public collections and she has exhibited in solo shows and regional galleries across Australia.
Image: Christine Wrest-Smith Body of Water – Portrait of Valerie Taylor AM 2022 oil on linen 71.5 x 81.5 cm
Painter and draughtsman Christine Wrest-Smith studied at Monash University, with a semester at the Prato, Italy. Over the past several years, Wrest-Smith has been creating large scale portraits of Australian artists. Wrest-Smith paints her sitters predominantly from life, capturing much about the artist’s inner world by incorporating elements of her subjects’ own artistic style and inspiration into her work. The unique characteristics of each sitter are masterfully rendered in oil paint; the sensitive portrayal of individuality, strength and fragility are testament to the artist’s close and perceptive observation.
Wrest-Smith’s works have been exhibited in Melbourne and Italy. She was awarded the Savage Club Prize in 2010 and the Masterworks Contemporary Art Prize in 2011. She has completed several portrait commissions and her work is held in public and private collections.
Visit the Australian Galleries online Stock Room to view available works by Jenny Rodgerson and Christine Wrest-Smith.
Rodney Forbes Able Seaman John Henry Jarrett, RAN 2022 oil on canvas, text panel 30 x 60 cm
Congratulations to Rodney Forbes and Christine Wrest-Smith, who have been selected as a finalists in the 2022 Gallipoli Art Prize.
The Gallipoli Art Prize is an annual acquisitive award administered by the Gallipoli Memorial Club. The Art Prize is awarded to the artist who best depicts the spirit of the Club’s creed: “there exists an obligation for all to preserve the special qualities of loyalty, respect, love of country, courage and comradeship which were personified by the heroes of the Gallipoli Campaign and bequeathed to all humanity as a foundation of perpetual peace and universal freedom.”
The winner of the $20,000 art prize will be announced on 20 April.
All works will then be on exhibition at Cleland Bond Store, 33 Playfair Street, The Rocks, NSW from 21 April – 8 May 2022.
For more information, and to view all 2022 finalists, click here.
Rodney Forbes
‘John Henry (‘Jack’) Jarrett joined up at the outbreak of World War 2, aged 18. His ship, HMAS Perth fought with honours in the Mediterranean and the Far East before going down fighting, beside USS Houston, against a huge Japanese invasion fleet off Java.
Interned at Changi prison, Singapore, then brutally enslaved for years on the Thai-Burma ‘Death Railway’, he was transferred by ship, running the gauntlet of US submarine attacks, to Fukuoka, Japan. There he survived further slavery in a coal mine and intensive US bombing. At length freed, he was trans shipped through the radio-active ruins of Nagasaki to Melbourne, where he recuperated and was demobbed, aged 25.
The loyalty, respect, love of country, courage, comradeship and sacrifice of the Thai-Burma Railway prisoners of war is legendary. Jack exemplified them as the unassuming and courteous man I remember for his sense of humour and generosity. He overcame massive trauma to live a useful and full life and to me, he was a model for the best a man could be.’ – Rodney Forbes, 2022
Christine Wrest-Smith
Christine Wrest-Smith The Messenger 2022 oil on linen 112 x 112 cm
‘The Purple poppy was introduced some years ago, to signify the contribution of animals great and small during the Great wars.
It is a symbol of remembrance of the animals that number in their millions, whose sacrifices and deeds played such an important part during the conflicts. 16 million animals alone were used in WW1.
Horses, Camels, Donkeys and Mules were used in transport and carrying supplies as well as Medivac for the wounded. Dogs were trained for search and rescue, and used as ammunition guards and scouts for land mines. Cats and Dogs were used in trenches and on ships to protect food stores from vermin, Mice and Canaries for detecting poison gas.
A range of animals were present as pets and mascots, for much needed morale of their human comrades. The unconditional loyalty of a pet must have been an enormous comfort during the dreadful hardships of war.
Pigeons were imperative for communication during the war, as messengers. It is for this reason that I chose the pigeon in the form of a harbinger of peace as the subject of this work.’ – Christine Wrest-Smith, 2022