The team responsible for looking after the National Portrait Gallery’s collection and exhibition hangs have selected their favourite work from the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023 ahead of the exhibition’s opening on Friday 16 June.
Congratulations to David Cossini, winner of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023 Art Handlers’ Award. Cossini wins $2,000, courtesy of IAs Fine Art Logistics.
David Cossini, Ugandan Ssebabi, 2022
The winning portrait, titled Ugandan Ssebabi, 2022, is set in the slums of Kyazanga, Uganda. The sitter: Godfrey Baguma.
“Godfrey Baguma, who was born with a rare and painful physical disability, was abandoned by his mother as a bringer of ‘bad luck’, and shunned by society,” Cossini explains. “Through a chance encounter, he reinvented himself as an entertainer in a travelling show. Now 57, he has beaten the odds. While most people with his condition die by 40, he has found love, success and bought a house – a testament to human resilience and positivity.”
Art Handlers’ Jessica Kemister and Jacob Potter add:
“This is a confident work of art: there is assurance in the composition, in the figures of Godfrey and the turkey and in the joyful palette of colours. Cossini’s composition cleverly positions Godfrey against the billowing sheets of coloured fabric in background in tones of pinks and reds, echoing this visual likeness in the red wattle and legs of the turkey with Godfrey’s suit. A single turquoise string creates a connection between the figures both visually and in reality. The colours, scale and visual contrast in the work really appealed to us.”
An exhibition of finalists’ works is on view at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra from 17 June to 2 October 2023, with the winner of the National Portrait Prize 2023 announced on Friday 16 June.
