Charlie is one of the younger residents at Ainslie Village, or ‘the Vil’, in Canberra, a social housing complex that provides accommodation and access to support services for some of the city’s most vulnerable inhabitants. Photographed by Lee Grant, Charlie wears a t-shirt with an image of an ‘Esc’ computer key, accompanied by the haunting words ‘I keep pressing escape but I’m still here’.
Lee Grant, Charlie, 2017, digital print – Winner National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018. Courtesy the artist and National Portrait gallery, Australian Capital Territory
The photograph, simply titled Charlie, has won the ‘National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018’. Grant was both delighted and honoured with the announcement: ‘An acknowledgement like this is massive and will encourage me to keep going and to keep sharing stories that are important to me and that I believe deserve to be in the national conversation,’ said the artist. Grant receives $30,000 cash from the Portrait Gallery, lighting equipment from Profoto to the value of $15,000 and paper supplies from Ilford to the value of $5,000.
The Portrait Gallery has awarded the prize for Highly Commended to Victorian photographer Filomena Rizzo for her portrait titled My Olivia. ‘The portrait of Olivia was taken in the Redwood Forest, a very magical place. I didn’t see the real significance of the image until some weeks later. The image shows vulnerability and sadness, but mostly I see strength and a bond only we two share. My girls are by far my greatest teachers,’ said Rizzo; ‘The portrait has come from a very personal space and time. When you put so much into an image and share it, it is wonderful that others see it. I am truly humbled and grateful to have won Highly Commended.’ Rizzo receives an EIZO monitor valued up to $4,000, courtesy of EIZO.
Filomena Rizzo, My Olivia, 2017, digital print. Highly Commended National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018. Courtesy the artist and National Portrait gallery, Australian Capital Territory
Dr Christopher Chapman, Senior Curator at the Portrait Gallery and co-judge of this year’s prize says it was the power of humanness that shone through in the two award-winning portraits. ‘It’s a big deal to make it through to the final exhibition selection and with my fellow judges Petrina Hicks and Robert Cook, I was looking closely at how the portraits spoke to me, how they conveyed their story uniquely,’ said Chapman; ‘As the possible winners came into view from within a very strong field, it felt like we were distilling something of the essence of portraiture, and the winning portraits possessed that essence for us.’
Co-judge and photographer Petrina Hicks added ‘it felt as though the distilling process was to extract truth – that we narrowed down the images that felt true.’
Co-judge and Curator at the Art Gallery of Western Australia Robert Cook appreciated that both works depict a young individual making their own way in their lives and into the wider world: ‘It’s like both subjects are facing futures that are uncertain. And they’re doing so bravely. It’s the bravery that you have when you’re afraid, when you yourself might crumble and you figure there’s only a fifty-fifty shot at making it through. What the artists have done here is present this dilemma, one we all get on some level, with compassion, without artifice and without false heroics,’ said Cook.
National Portrait Gallery
24 March to 17 June, 2018
Australian Capital Territory
