Melbourne artist Fiona O’Byrne has won the $50,000 Richard Lester Prize for Portraiture with Luci, now, an oil-on-linen painting of her 20-year-old daughter. The work shows Luci sitting on a stool with a neutral expression, and continues a practice of painting her children that O’Byrne has kept up for more than ten years.
Judges Alan Dodge, John McDonald and Bryony Nainby praised the portrait’s softness and tenderness, which they linked to its “unlaboured handling of paint”. They also singled out the closeness between artist and sitter, the ease of the subject’s expression, the way the painting captures light, and the detail in the jacket and nail varnish.
O’Byrne said the sittings gave her a chance to stop and observe her daughter at this stage of her life, and to watch time pass and their relationship change. She described the painting as a way of holding on to her daughter’s fierce and generous heart.
O’Byrne first picked up a paintbrush at 36. She began painting after her first child was born, and when her youngest turned one she enrolled in an art class, looking for something creative outside her day job. She said she found her people there and that the class changed her life. For the past decade she has divided her working time between painting and landscape architecture, and she plans to use the prize money to try new ideas without the pressure of selling work, calling it “a huge amount of freedom”.
Perth artist and honours student Yasamin Khadembashi won the $10,000 Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize for Immoral Warrior, a two-metre reimagined self-portrait inspired by Iranian folklore. She described it as an ode to Iranian women and an expression of queer Iranian joy and pride. The judges praised her bold use of rhinestones, synthetic eyelash extensions and metal leaf. Other prizes went to Sky Parra for Portrait of Scott Austic, Sharon Billinge for Celeste 3, Kim Harding for Kim with Black Cockatoo, Ben Howe for Matilda in Blue and Dapeng Liu for Guido.
The Lester Prize has a total pool of $140,000, which makes it one of the most lucrative portraiture prizes in Australia. This year it attracted more than 1,100 entries, the most in its history, and over 60 per cent came from outside Western Australia. Founding partner Russell Lester said the record showed the prize’s impact on the arts community. The 40 finalist works are on show at WA Museum Boola Bardip in Perth until 29 November.
