Picture This

Portrait for the 2026 Archibald Prize

Friends,

My portrait has been entered into the 2026 Archibald Prize. For international readers, this is a prestigious annual award any Australian artist can enter. I have no expectations, except that I’d like the portrait to do well for the artist. Let me tell you how it all started.

Melbourne artist Lorraine Meinke first approached me in 2019, when I worked in television, presenting an interview show called One Plus One. Later that year, I resigned and as I was planning to be in Melbourne to moderate an awards night, I met Lorraine for the first time and we had the first of two sittings.

For several reasons, COVID being the most memorable, Lorraine didn’t finish the portrait to her satisfaction. Maybe it was just as well because, at the time, I didn’t feel I had been as helpful as I should have.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what Lorraine saw in me. I don’t think I’m visually interesting. I often feel self-conscious. I’ve always hated my nose. One eye is slightly bigger than the other. I wish my teeth were whiter. I’ve been told (by my daughter) that I look angry or upset when I think I have a neutral expression. When I become excited, which is frequently, my face contorts and - I’ve been told - I shout, although I call this ‘being animated’. I can be impatient. At times I am petty.

Is all of this apparent from the outside?

“After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies,” says author Cynthia Ozick

If my face has become my biography, I am curious about what the artist sees.

I asked Lorraine if I could meet her on the day she was due to lodge the portrait at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. On a humid, autumn day and she appeared at the foot of the gallery’s sandstone stairs, lugging a giant canvas in a wooden case. She’d brought it from Melbourne. I hadn’t seen the portrait yet, thinking that it might be nice to be surprised.

But what if I didn’t like it? I thought. Well, it’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it?

The Archibalds are a ‘thing’ in Sydney. Actually there are three awards. Apart from The Archibald Prize, there’s also the Wynne Prize for the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figure sculpture and the Sulman Prize for best subject, genre, or mural painting.¹ The winner is sometimes a famous artist, like the wonderful Wendy Sharpe or Del Kathryn Barton, but I would say it’s more about whether the portrait captures something unusual or surprising about the sitter. The highlight of the annual. event is that a select number of entries (plus finalists and winners) appear in an exhibition which is always extremely well-attended.

Lorraine said she’d be very happy if my portrait (which she calls her portrait), gets hung in the art gallery as part of that exhibition.

“The odds of succeeding are exceedingly small. It attracts hundreds of entries. I don’t know why it’s so popular. Perhaps because, if you win, you’re an instant celebrity,” said Lorraine. “Personally, this would terrify me.”

But if your portrait gets hung, she said, “you get instant street credibility… It is like finally being acknowledged as a ‘real’ artist by both the industry and your creative peers. Plus, it’s great exposure. You get to meet the other finalists at a special lunch event. I could actually meet some of my idols, like Tsering Hannaford for example, which would be amazing since her dad is the reason why I started painting portraits in the first place.”

I am curious about what Lorraine ‘saw’ when she chose me. What was she trying to paint, trying to capture?

“After the very first sitting I was intrigued by the subtleties of your face. Within what seemed like milliseconds, your face could transform and go through a full range of emotions. I don’t think that you have to say anything in order to convey how you feel; it’s written all over your face. I liked that quality about you. It’s very honest and appealing; there’s no mask present.”

So she saw that I felt like a fraud? That I was (during the second sitting) emotionally fragile? That I wanted her to hurry up?

She paused.

“What ultimately won me over, was your eyes when you smiled; they sparkled and made your whole face come to life. They seemed to speak volumes. It is that twinkle that I sought to capture. The mischievous quality that lurks behind the professional persona.”

Lorraine said that she doesn’t normally paint people smiling, but, she thought that when I didn’t smile, I looked bored.

“I wanted to capture the very start of the expression. Definitely not a wide smile. Just the slightest smirk. In my opinion, there is something going on behind the expression. It tells you something more than a photograph alone could. Exactly what it’s saying is open for interpretation. For that reason, I feel like I have successfully managed to capture a moment in time.”

At the art gallery, I waited nervously as Lorraine produced an Allen key and opened up the crate in the packing room.

My initial thought was that it was not in colour, which surprised me. I thought it looked like a lithograph or an engraving.

“I like it,” I told Lorraine. And I really did.

Lorraine said she knew it was going to be good very early on in the 2026 attempt (she had abandoned the first attempt from 2019 as it ‘just wasn’t working’). She kindly shared one of her progress images:

Eventually, after around fifty hours of work, she had this:

'Jane Hutcheon' by Lorraine Meinke, oil on linen, 91.7 x 91.7cm, 2026. Image ©Matthew Stanton.

I particularly like the placement of my hands. I don’t know why. I like the crows feet near my left eye and I like that Lorraine has captured the different shape and size of my eyes. I like the soft folds in the silk shirt and the pattern of the cardigan. She (Jane) is not perfect. The portrait tells a story. There’s definitely something below the surface. It is a biography, of sorts.

After salad at the cafe, before we parted company, I was interested in something Lorraine had mentioned on our walk to the packing room.

It was about knowing when to stop painting.

“I believe that old saying that ‘artwork is never finished, only abandoned’. You can always do more. It’s a question of whether doing so is going to improve the piece. It is extremely easy to keep going and essentially spoil an otherwise good piece of work by mucking around with it too much, instead of simply walking away…More recently, I have been actively trying to let go of my perfectionism and learn to embrace a looser, less rigid, style to my work. I believe adopting this approach will ultimately set me free.”

Friends, wishing you a Happy Easter on Sunday and Happy Orthodox Easter next Sunday.

1. https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/archibald-wynne-and-sulman-prizes-2025/