The lounge room of Canberra

Just in case you hadn’t noticed yet, another iconic monument opened in the nation’s capital over summer — in fact the most significant construction to be built in the Parliamentary Triangle since Parliament House in 1988.

The National Portrait Gallery was designed to work on a scale allowing visitors to relate to the intimate, human-sized portraits in the same relative proximity as artist was to subject. For this reason you will find only one floor of exhibition spaces,  with bite-size corridors and rooms of artwork that don’t leave the visitor lost in cathedral-like spaces, or with  the feeling that there is just “one room too many”.

Given the depth of stories on display about both sitter and creator, there’s a lot to absorb in each room. Although smaller by comparison with established national collections, the National Portrait Gallery already owns work visitors will be familiar with, such as Howard Arkley’s fantastic take on Nick Cave. Regular commissioning of portraits is well under way, with featured stars such as Rolf Harris occasionally turning up in person.

Above: Ross WATSON, Ian Roberts (after Coypel 1709) 2003, oil on composition board. National Portrait Gallery collection

Accomplished gay and lesbian Australians are represented as artists and subjects – Missy Higgins, James Gleeson, James Houston, William Yang, Patrick White, Molly Meldrum, and Robert Dessaix.

Ross Watson’s recent painting of Ian Roberts hangs in the permanent collection as their first image of Australia’s most well known ‘out’ gay sportsman. Ian Roberts (after Coypel 1709) shows a distinct male physique familiar in Watson’s paintings and photographs, which have been described as ‘homoerotic contemporary realism’.

Watson’s  highly sought after paintings are of finely sculpted semi nude males placed out of context, often reworking classical paintings by masters such as Caravaggio, or in this case Nicolas Coypel’s Abduction of Europe (1727).

One of Watson’s first sales at age 25 was to Elton John, followed by a number of high profile patrons that have led to an international career
and a Melbourne-based solo gallery for the artist  The subject of a number of Watson’s series of artworks, Ian Roberts offered to pose nude to symbolise his shedding of, the Superleague celebrity image.

For me a standout is the large 1998 painting of Michael Kirby by Ralph Heimans. The portrait captures a cursory glance somewhere between light hearted and stern, from a man more focussed on improving human rights and ethics next door at the High Court and internationally, than stopping to have a portrait painted. Having just retired from High Court duties might give him time to see it in situ during regular stays as Visiting Fellow for ANU Law. He’s also found time to create a personal website about the ‘great game’ of Australian law michaelkirby.com.au

My first visit to the new Portrait Gallery surprised me. I had not expected it to be a stirring experience, serving as a reminder that a strong sense of self is linked to a healthy collective identity, which depends as much on the passion and daring of individuals within a group to stand out, as to our ongoing value and celebration of their achievements. Our own self-portraits need not have a limited frame. Cate Blanchett’s looping video effectively makes this point, “who I am is constantly changing” inevitably shifted by internal and external forces.

During the time the Portrait Gallery was temporarily housed in Old Parliament House I’d been circumspect about the need for an additional memorial presenting ‘Australian identity’ in Canberra—something you might experience in any current ‘national’ gallery, museum or library. However, the building’s physical reality has made the original Portrait Gallery ideal to fuse history, stories and art more easy to appreciate. The current display is an eclectic mix of acquired, commissioned, and borrowed art from Australia and overseas—a unique outing certainly worth a visit.

By Brendan Dahl
Edited by Yasmin Element