The finalists for the 2024 Archibald Prize were revealed by the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) on Thursday, May 30 and among the list are a mix of Greek portrait subjects and artists.
The winner will be announced on June 7. The $100,000 prize is awarded to the best portrait of a person ‘distinguished in art, letters, science or politics’ painted by an Australian resident.
The finalists for the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes will be on show at the AGNSW from June 8 to September 8.Whitney Duan
Chanel Contos (smiling feminist)
A portrait of Greek Australian activist Chanel Contos has been painted by 26-year-old Eliza Bertwistle. Eliza is a first-time Archibald finalist and secondary teacher who admires Contos from both an educator’s and feminist’s perspective.
“It was my intention to capture Chanel’s effervescent nature and tease out our instinctive correlations between hyper-femininity and frivolity. In response to historically male representations of women, it was important that Chanel represented herself on her own terms,” Bertwistle said about her portrait.
Fluffy (Jordan Gogos)
Whitney Duan has created a portrait of multidisciplinary artist and designer Jordan Gogos. Whitney is a first-time Archibald finalist.
“As a self-taught painter, I am haunted by the spectre of being seen as a fraud,” Whitney admitted. “Yet, in painting Jordan, I found solace from an artist who dismissed my anxieties, declaring that ‘stress is boring.’ Jordan’s identity as an artist remains unwavering, a vibrant beacon guiding my process.”
Nick Stathopoulos
Nick Stathopoulos has been named finalist in the 2024 Archibald Prize for ‘The last picture show – portrait of David Stratton.’ Stathopoulos was a finalist in the 2008 Archibald Prize with an irreverent portrait of distinguished film critic David Stratton fast asleep in a cinema. Sixteen years later, Stathopoulos decided to undertake a smaller, intimate, more serious work. The sitting for the portrait proved to be a happy one.
“It was a bright, crisp Blue Mountains day, and we sat on David’s back porch talking movies (what else?) as I sketched in the final details. It also happened to be his wedding anniversary, and his wife Susie was keen to point out that she had knitted the red cardigan 40 years ago,” Stathopoulos said.
An Archibald finalist on eight previous occasions, Stathopoulos won the People’s Choice in 2016 with a portrait of Sudanese refugee and lawyer Deng Adut.
