Brisbane artist Julie Frager wins for portrait of Justene Williams

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The winner of this year's Archibald prize has just been announced. It is Julie Frager for the portrait of her friend and fellow artist Justine Williams. The artist receives 100 thousand dollars as well as the kudos of winning the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia.

Transcript

00:00I'm completely blown away. I still don't really know. I don't know where I am, which

00:07way is up or down. Yeah, I'm absolutely thrilled.

00:10Well, it's great news. So talk us through the painting then, which is just over your

00:15left shoulder. Why did you choose to paint your friend Justine in the way you have?

00:22Sure. So her name is Justine Williams and she's one of Australia's most amazing sculpture

00:28and performance artists. Justine has this way about her, anybody who knows Justine, where

00:35on the one hand, she's an incredibly intense person and any interaction with Justine, you'll

00:41experience that intensity. And at the same time, she has this sort of otherworldly aspect to

00:46her. And you can see in her practice that she's created all sorts of things, everything she

00:51uses, everything from car bodies to televisions to opera singers. So there's a real larger

00:56than life aspect of her practice as well. And so I wanted to make a painting that really

01:01captured that, that showed Justine as a kind of conjurer of an incredible creative universe

01:09or multiverse of work.

01:11Which is the title of the work.

01:15That's right. So it was, the title of the work is Flagship Mother Multiverse. And Flagship

01:23Mother came from one of Justine's performances that was called Making Do Rhymes With Pooh that

01:31she performed in New Zealand earlier this year. And it was all about women's labor and the labor

01:36of trying to, you know, have a creative career and work a day job and look after the family and

01:41all of that stuff. And so you'll see in the painting, in the lower left hand corner, you

01:45can see a painting also of Justine's daughter, Honour, looking up at her mother and wondering,

01:52you know, almost admiring Justine at the same time thinking, okay, am I going to have to

01:56handle all this as well?

01:58How long did it take to paint, Julie?

02:02It was three months, a really solid three months. So I made a decision. I haven't entered

02:07the Archibald every year because it's a time consuming thing if you're going to do a good

02:11job of it. But I decided to set aside the three months and to dedicate that completely

02:16to making this work. And I did. And I'm really, really pleased I did, obviously.

02:20Well, you won the Archibald. Does Justine like the painting?

02:25She absolutely loves it. She saw it. You can hear her laughing in the background. She saw

02:30it for the first time actually today. So she was the dream subject that she didn't want

02:37to see the painting, didn't want to see how it was being developed and was just very,

02:40she trusted me completely and was very pleased to see the end product.

02:44So what does it mean to win the Archibald for you if the news has sunk in yet? It's not

02:49just the cash prize, is it? It's the prestige as well.

02:53Yeah, it's incredibly prestigious. The Art Gallery of New South Wales is, you know, a peak arts

03:00organisation in Australia and, you know, has a very special place in my heart. I was first

03:06shown here in Art Express many years ago. So to have that validation and the support from

03:11the trustees and also from peers of mine who are trustees as well, that's incredible. You

03:18can't put a price actually on just how meaningful that is. And I was saying to somebody earlier,

03:23I think, you know, winning this prize in your 20s would be very exciting. And I was in the

03:28Archibald prize in my 20s. But I'm so pleased in a way that all these decades later that I've

03:35been able to win it now, it feels incredibly meaningful after a long career as a painter.

03:40So how are you planning to celebrate?

03:44I think Justine would like to go and get something sparkling and alcoholic to drink and

03:49then I'm not sure what will happen after that and return for the opening later.

03:53Okay. Does she get to keep the painting, Julie?

03:56No, no, she doesn't get to keep the painting.

04:01Okay.

04:01Unless she buys it, maybe.

04:03Okay.

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