Doug Moran Portrait Prize 2010

Tango · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 1359 Location: Melbourne

The 2010 Doug Moran Portrait Prize winner is Michael Zavros. ($150,000.00)
http://www.moranprizes.com.au/default.aspx?id=6

The Pook · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 2904 Location: Tasmania

I can't see a painting by him in that lot. Which one is it?

Tango · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 1359 Location: Melbourne

Try here :- http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/7942691/zavros-wins-moran-portrait-prize

AvG · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 1912

Pook the Moran site is annoying in that you have to scroll across and when you get to the end there is a small 'more finalists' arrow you have to click. I think the Zavros painting is on the third page.

It's the polar opposite of last year's winner, and as with all of Micheal Zavros's work is exquisite.

Seems this year realism and technical skills were very highly regarded. (My friends Dagmar and VR were also selected this year and are on the second or third page too)

The Pook · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 2904 Location: Tasmania

Yes thanks Amanda. Maybe it doesn't work well with Chrome. I managed to work out that there was a second page but there didn't seem to be a third one so I stopped at two.

Yes I noticed that. It does arrest the trend of recent years, not just away from realism, but also towards paintings that push the boundaries of what a portrait is, whether executed in a realist style or not. Interesting though that the winning portrait is not in portrait orientation but landscape orientation.

Richard Cheese · Joined: 13 Aug 2010 Posts: 2

Personally i find Mr Zavros incredibly overrated, but that is for another thread i suppose.

Tango · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 1359 Location: Melbourne

Richard Cheese · Joined: 13 Aug 2010 Posts: 2

I realise i will be accused of trolling but i merely said he's incredibly overrated and i stand by that. Just a dissenting opinion.

I don't say he's a bad artist but neither is he a great one..and mediocrity celebrated as great art annoys me. ('The mediocre is dangerous..for it can seem to be good').

His paintings are more about patience than great skill, the application up close isn't that amazing..the surface is pretty lifeless imo. There are artists out there who may look sightly less photographic but are (imo) more skillful and (crucially) actually use paint in an interesting way.

Also, from what i can gather in general doesn't he work from photos in glossy magazines (not in this work obviously), and thus isn't he basically stealing the photographer's intellectual property? I realise in the art world this is accepted as 'appropriation' but i don't really buy that. So thematically, for me he's pretty much an empty vessel outside of appropriating some sort of high fashion glam. Your mileage may vary and that's fine.

I do like some of his horse stuff and charcoal stuff, but, yeah...overall he just isn't that amazing imo.

Chrissy D · Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Posts: 1048 Location: Queensland

Again, shock tatics win. I think scrolling through the finalists there were a number of others to be more outstanding

S.Wayde · Joined: 16 May 2011 Posts: 10 Location: Paddington

I just got back from the Moran prize and a second visit to the archabald with my class and at the suggestion of my painting teacher that the use of a digital image beneath some of the photorealistic paintings was definate! more obviously in the archabald but including the winner of the moran! at first this was a shock to me but this was the view of my teacher, a reputable painter in his own right and a painting teacher at tafe and the national art school.
This was the painting that started the controversy

It cant really be seen in an image of this size but in person the faces definitley looked to be like a digital image printed on canvas with slight gestural brush strokes on top also in the heshon sack the boy on the right is holding in which such detail would require layer apon layer the image printed on the canvas appeared to show through!

Mannn im still skeptical but no shit why would my teacher suggest this? And
If it is a common practice to what extent is it being practiced and where is the line drawn if it is even drawn? i do realise we live in a digital age and digital imagery has become a major part of the fine art world but in a painting prize i expect to see pure truthful paintings!

Please someone enlighten me!!
I would also wish to state that these are merely views and do not intend to take anything away from the artists or subjects.

Tango · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 1359 Location: Melbourne

Painting over images printed on to canvas seems to be getting more common by the day , when I first saw it I thought it was a rip off, but then I guess if I was alive when artists started to copy photographs to paint their pictures I would have thought the same thing....... when any new device/medium becomes available for artist to realize their ideas , especial if it speeds the process up ,they will use it...........It is just a matter for the buying public to educate themselves to know what they are purchasing......

gggraph · Last edited by gggraph on Thu May 19, 2011 1:37 pm; edited 1 time in total

There is a common trick with reproduction paintings: The image is printed onto canvas, then it is brushed over with a clear impasto medium to leave visible brush strokes, which have texture. The give-away is that the clear strokes bear no relationship to the image.

I would have an issue with something of this type being submitted for a prize (unless it was a printing award.). Completely covering a printed image with paint would be OK. From the sounds of it, in this case the artist has not done that, so in my opinion the work is a collage, since it encorporates photographic elements. That may be legal under the rules. (FYI - it would NOT be at Camberwell.)

Grant

Devilbiss · Joined: 06 Jul 2007 Posts: 3209

I consider it wrong to use a printed photograh as an underpainting.
Especially when its taken with front on flash lighting...like that one of Maurice Iemma by Carmen Di Napoli that was an Archibald finalist. Shocked

Stefan Maguran

It must be very hard to paint over a photograph (or at least as hard as painting from scratch).
Unless you use just medium to simulate brushstrokes (like some Chinese do).

Tango · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 1359 Location: Melbourne