Mitch Cairns wins 2017 Archibald Prize with portrait of Agatha Gothe-Snape

“I composed this portrait with love in the full knowledge of its inevitable and palpable quake.” – Mitch Cairns

Sydney artist Mitch Cairns, a four-time Archibald Prize finalist, has won the 2017 Archibald Prize with a stylised portrait of his artist partner, Agatha Gothe-Snape. Gothe-Snape is a significant contemporary artist exhibiting widely both in Australia and overseas.

2017 Archibald Prize winning portrait: Mitch Cairns Agatha Gothe-Snape oil on linen, 140.5 x 125cm © the artist. Photograph: Mim Stirling, AGNSW

“I composed this portrait with love. Agatha and I share everything in our lives; our two-year-old son; our work as artists and our day-to-day lives,” Cairns said.

“Initially I made loose drawings of Agatha, just in the flow. It’s a domestic scene. When you have a young child there’s a lot of creative play happening on the floor.

“In this portrait Agatha’s in an ‘uncomfortably comfortable’ pose; legs crossed, head turned, on our rumpled rug,” Cairns said.

Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) curator of Australian art, Anne Ryan, said Cairns’s work is graphic and incorporates an economical use of palette and line. “There is a clarity to the collection of objects surrounding Agatha that highlights the domestic nature of the portrait, revealing tell-tale marks of the couple’s home life,” Ryan said.

AGNSW director Michael Brand praises Cairn’s artistic style; “The sensitive portrait carries Cairns’s signature playful complexity and this, along with his composition of form and colour, will no doubt draw comparisons with the style of Matisse and other modernist masters,” Brand said.

“There were many great Archibald contenders this year, but it was the skill and sensitivity of Mitch’s portrait which left a significant impression on us all,” adds AGNSW Board president David Gonski.

The 2017 Archibald Prize had 822 entries this year from which 43 finalist portraits were selected. Of the 43 finalist portraits almost half chose artists as sitters, with 19 of them depicting artists including a double portrait of another artist couple, James Drinkwater and Lottie Consalvo.

Wynne Prize

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani from Antara in South Australia is the winner of the 2017 Wynne Prize. Following on from the success of fellow APY Lands artists the Ken Family, who won the Wynne Prize last year, Pumani’s distinctive painting of her mother country captivated the judges.

“My landscape work is my country, Antara. This is my grandmother’s country. My family is responsible for taking care of this country. The Ancestors taught the lessons of taking care of country, and these lessons have been passed through the generations,” Pumani said.

“When I paint my country I am celebrating the culture of my country, and am taking my turn passing on these lessons, passing on the Tjukurpa (cultural story) to the next generation of Anangu. This is how we keep our culture strong,” she added.

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, Antara, acrylic on linen, 200 x 300cm. © the artist

Sulman Prize

Joan Ross is the winner of the 2017 Sulman Prize for her mixed media work Oh history, you lied to me.

“This work is really important to me because it discusses our ongoing issues in Australia arising from colonisation. I’m so happy that so many people will have a chance to see the work and keep these issues as a point of discussion,” Ross said.