Lewis Miller Self Portrait 2023 oil on linen 25.5 x 20.4 cm
Congratulations to Lewis Miller and Michelle Hiscock who have been selected as finalists in the 2023 Archibald Prize, Pippin Drysdale and Michael Snape who are finalists in the Wynne Prize and Glenn Morgan, finalist in the Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.
The Archibald Prize for portrait painting is the country’s favourite and most significant art award. Since 1921, it has highlighted figures from all walks of life, from famous faces to local heroes, reflecting back to us the stories of our times. The Wynne Prize is awarded to the best landscape painting of Australian scenery, or figure sculpture, while the Sulman Prize is given to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project in oil, acrylic, watercolour or mixed media. Each year, the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW judge the Archibald and Wynne, and invite an artist to judge the Sulman.
Click here to read more about the exhibition and to plan your visit to the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes.
Winners announced:
5 May 2023
Exhibition dates:
6 May – 3 September 2023
Art Gallery of NSW
Archibald Prize Finalists
Michelle Hiscock The songwriter 2023 oil on paper 38 x 29.4 cm
Sydney-based artist Michelle Hiscock has lived in France and Japan, and is most known for her detailed, refined landscapes. For this portrait, she chose a subject closer to home, painting musician Don Walker, a songwriter and founding member of legendary Australian rock band Cold Chisel.
‘I like to work from life, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting people who live nearby in the hope of more frequent sittings. I’d often seen Don coming and going from his terrace at the top of my street, and so many of his songs are set in Kings Cross, near my studio,’ says Hiscock, a first-time Archibald finalist.
‘When you paint people who are good at their craft, you also learn about your own. There’s pathos and humanity in Don’s songwriting, light and shade, realism and poetry: the same qualities that give truth to painting.
‘I knew he’d be hard to catch in the lead-up to the launch of his new solo album, so as soon as he arrived for a sitting, I launched into the portrait.
‘We talked about painting and writing. Each word in a song needs to evoke a world of sensations, feeling and experience; in a portrait, each stroke seeks to build a likeness, but also to suggest the boundless world within.’
Lewis Miller Self Portrait 2023 oil on linen 25.5 x 20.4 cm
‘At least once a year, I will have a go at a self-portrait, like many painters I know,’ says Melbourne-based artist Lewis Miller. ‘This small one seemed to come out all right, so I decided to enter it in this year’s Archibald Prize.’
Making his debut in 1990, Miller has exhibited in the Archibald on 19 occasions. His own face has appeared in six of those paintings from 2000 until now, including in a portrait with artist Allan Mitelman in 2007, so regular visitors to the Archibald will have watched Miller aging gracefully over the years.
In 1998, Lewis won the Archibald with a portrait of Mitelman, and in 2000 he took home the Sporting Portrait Prize – held in conjunction with the Archibald – with a portrait of Aussie Rules legend Ron Barassi.
Wynne Prize Finalists
Pippin Drysdale Wolfe Creek Crater installation porcelain 17 parts dimensions variable
The grandeur of remote Western Australia has been a source of inspiration to Pippin Drysdale for decades. In her recent work, her attention has shifted from the vastness of land, water and sky to the subtleties of nature’s small and wonderful details.
Drysdale was drawn to interpret Wolfe Creek Crater, or Kandimalal to the Jaru people, for its ecosystem, which has evolved over 120,000 years since the moment of meteorite impact. Containing seasonal water, the rocky crater is a habitat for precious wildlife, which Drysdale distils in her abstract sculptural forms.
‘Working collaboratively with my dear friend and thrower, Warrick Palmateer, I turned to my memories of Wolfe Creek,’ says the first-time Wynne finalist. ‘Within the crater are brown ringtail dragons, whose colours can range from orange to pale beige with yellow on the underbelly, and butterflies such as the Glasswing or Spotted Dusky Blue, with their fluttering, glistening wings. The elusive Major Mitchell cockatoos are residents of the crater and are a stunning sight in flight against a backdrop of red rocks and blue skies. All in all, it is a raw and rugged environment.’
Michael Snape The Voice 2023 hardwood 206 x 130 x 52.5 cm
The Voice to Parliament proposes an independent, representative advisory body for First Nations people to the Australian parliament and government. Michael Snape, a second-time finalist in the Wynne, addresses the Voice in this work.
This is the sound of the Voice that has been speaking to me for nearly 250 years, nearly a quarter of a millennium.
I have been reluctant to listen, distracted by the task of finding myself in this place.
I have been reluctant to hear the Voice even while all that time the Voice was speaking, singing, waiting for me to hear it.
The Voice doesn’t shout. It draws you in, and, as you listen to it, you find yourself more at home. You may have run here, but from this place you will not need to run away.
This work is the shape of my listening.
– Michael Snape, 2023
Sir John Sulman Prize Finalist
Glenn Morgan Archie Roach honoured with ‘journey home’ 2023 acrylic on board 50.3 x 122.1 cm
I was very saddened by the passing of the late, great Archie Roach in July 2022. I first heard Archie on his album Charcoal Lane (1990). The song ‘Took the children away’ would always make me tear up, and still does. It’s so sad and moving. As Archie’s career grew, he became a great educator through his songs and gentle storytelling. I had the privilege of seeing him perform on a number of occasions.
This painting is about how Archie was honoured by people standing on the highway in the cold and rain to pay their respects as his hearse was driven from Melbourne to Warrnambool, in Gunditjmara Country, for a private funeral on 22 August 2022. I would like to thank the Roach family for allowing me to enter this work into the Sulman Prize.
Glenn Morgan, 2023
The family of Archie Roach have kindly given permission for his name and image to be referenced in this artwork and displayed within this exhibition.
Above: Danielle Creenaune Veil Song 4 watercolour on paper
Glenn Morgan 
Mary Tonkin