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.