Reviews on Inside Out Upside Down Gallery Site
Doug Moran Portraiture Prize 2009
The Doug Moran Prize has slowly been moving in its hangings towards the errors of the Archibald. This year is fortunately a shift in size of image towards practical portraiture. Unfortunately most of the images are quite vapid in content, the supporting text sometimes appearing to be a reason for selection.
I particularly liked Sam Waides painting, a work clearly done from observation rather than a photographic reference. The expressiveness of the paintings was clearly far stronger than that of the images at the Archibald.
Unfortunately I felt my expectations not met. The suspicion that the same artistic values were being applied by selectors of the Archibald and the Moran was present as I looked at the works, and lingered with me afterwards. But as I have already said the images were more expressive and the artists may well have saved the exhibition by working at a size that gave them the opportunity to produce better works.
The winner was a shock. But as an acquisitive prize I expect there is some pressure to select a painting that may over time return the prize money either in cash or at least in the kudos of an established, respected artists name. Given the limited hanging space for the prize this year (no complaint here as the Photographic Prize was compressed into the same space the year before) this larger work looked disproportionately large. Skill and application wise there was little between the winner and the highly commendeds.. perhaps the risk involved in the use of such a large amount of paint to achieve "differentiation" warranted the prize money.
author: Neil Miley