Elli Bardas has been awarded the Martin Kantor Portrait Prize for a photograph of her aunt Vicki Vodor OAM, judged by a panel including Naomi Cass, Director, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Isobel Crombie, Assistant Director, National Gallery of Victoria, and Leonard Vary CEO, Myer Foundation.
Elli Bardas, photograph of Vicki Vodor OAM
Courtesy the artist
The artist’s black and white composition relays an impression of the sitter as a compassionate and resolute woman. Vodor works with the Lighthouse Foundation supporting young people experiencing homelessness and is a patron for the organisation’s home for young mothers and babies.
Cass commented, “This portrait stands within a tradition of black and white portraiture, maybe reminiscent of 1960s, and as the sitter leans toward us we are invited in. The subject is a mature and beautiful woman and we can see in this open face something of an inner light, perhaps life well lived, and her hands are active hands that have lived and worked.”
The call to entry invited artists to portray a living Australian in the field of arts, letters, science, sports or politics. Bardas was one of 27 finalists drawn from more than 150 entries. The title and prize of $15,000 was supported in conjunction with the Dara Foundation. All of the works from the last round of judging will be on show in an exhibition at the Ballarat Town Hall that parallels the Ballarat International Foto Biennale on view through to 17 September.
