NTRO Output Category
- Original Creative Work : Visual artwork
Place
Perth, AustraliaVenue
Western Art Museum, Boola BardipNTRO Publisher
Lester PrizeMedium
hand knitted wool and acrylic yarn, canvas, timberResearch Statement
The Lester Portrait prize seeks to showcase the significant artistic practice of producing portrait art across Australia and in doing so represent the many identities, issues and concerns that portraiture has the capacity to convey. Most submitted portraits are paintings, and portray sitters the artists engage with to translate complex narratives and stories.
Kate Just's finalist selection for the Portrait prize is a hand knitted portrait of herself wearing an Everyone can be Pussy Riot t shirt. This knitted portrait refers to the photograph by Giulia Giannini McGauran taken as her profile picture at the university of Melbourne - where she teaches. Just requested a yellow backdrop for my picture and wore a t-shirt that reads: ‘Everyone can be Pussy Riot’ with a black leather jacket. I posed with a sly smile and held up my FEMINIST coffee cup. The knitting of this portrait reflects on the ways Just inflects her creative work with her personal politics, and the capacity of an artist to do this in a portrait prize setting. The portrait conveys that art can indeed transform conventional narratives about art and gender, and be a force for change.
The Lester Prize is a nationally competitive prize. Thousands of people enter their portraits and only 30 are selected as finalists. The exhibition received numerous reviews and media reviews and has thousands of visitors over the exhibition period.Size or Duration of Work
72 x 62
