A Vamp Loves the Camera
Vamp (woman), a seductress or femme fatale; derived from "vampire".
Well I just had to include this shot. As I looked across this room I was struck by a vivacious woman staring at me from her self-portrait. Perhaps it was the bright reds seemingly everywhere, and the fact that no one else seemed to be interested in her at the time. She must have fallen in love with my camera! The three other women in the photo were only interesting in relation to their complete disregard of this Vivacious Vamp. So I took the shot and Wendy Sharpe stole my heart.
Now Wendy would not be offended by my calling her a Vamp. It’s in the very title of her prize winning portrait of 1996: “Self-portrait as Diana of Erskineville”. The reference to Diana (the mythological Huntress) gives this away. Sharpe’s influences are many, and no one would be surprised to learn of her indebtedness to Edvard Munch (oh how he could paint a Vamp!). www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/recasting-...
Wendy Sharpe became just the fifth woman to win the Archibald and she is still creating magnificent art and stirring up hearts. www.wendysharpe.com/
Not to be outdone on the red end of the colour spectrum we see Tjungkara Ken’s “Kungkarangkalpa tjukurpa (Seven Sisters dreaming), a self-portrait” (2017). I love this work, even if it doesn’t fit my understanding of the portrait genre. But I am prepared to listen to the argument for a broader perspective on what a portrait means. Perhaps it is best described as a psycho-cultural portrait in which each individual self in a community finds their identity in relation to others, past, present and emerging.
“A century after the inaugural Archibald Prize, the notion that a person’s identity may be revealed in portraiture through codified cultural designs has progressively become accepted practice.”
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/recasting-...
A Vamp Loves the Camera
Vamp (woman), a seductress or femme fatale; derived from "vampire".
Well I just had to include this shot. As I looked across this room I was struck by a vivacious woman staring at me from her self-portrait. Perhaps it was the bright reds seemingly everywhere, and the fact that no one else seemed to be interested in her at the time. She must have fallen in love with my camera! The three other women in the photo were only interesting in relation to their complete disregard of this Vivacious Vamp. So I took the shot and Wendy Sharpe stole my heart.
Now Wendy would not be offended by my calling her a Vamp. It’s in the very title of her prize winning portrait of 1996: “Self-portrait as Diana of Erskineville”. The reference to Diana (the mythological Huntress) gives this away. Sharpe’s influences are many, and no one would be surprised to learn of her indebtedness to Edvard Munch (oh how he could paint a Vamp!). www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/recasting-...
Wendy Sharpe became just the fifth woman to win the Archibald and she is still creating magnificent art and stirring up hearts. www.wendysharpe.com/
Not to be outdone on the red end of the colour spectrum we see Tjungkara Ken’s “Kungkarangkalpa tjukurpa (Seven Sisters dreaming), a self-portrait” (2017). I love this work, even if it doesn’t fit my understanding of the portrait genre. But I am prepared to listen to the argument for a broader perspective on what a portrait means. Perhaps it is best described as a psycho-cultural portrait in which each individual self in a community finds their identity in relation to others, past, present and emerging.
“A century after the inaugural Archibald Prize, the notion that a person’s identity may be revealed in portraiture through codified cultural designs has progressively become accepted practice.”
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/recasting-...