<h2>About the exhibition</h2>

The Brisbane Portrait Prize celebrates the city of Brisbane/Meanjin, telling the stories of the courageous, creative, and passionate people who make up our city.&nbsp;

Showcasing the best in contemporary portraiture, the 2025 prize demonstrates that portraiture still excites the most accomplished of artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Portraits directly engage us with issues of identity, as this exhibition reveals. It spotlights how we construct our sense of self and others – so we can create meaning and belonging in a challenging world.&nbsp;

Join us at State Library of Queensland to engage, reflect, and be inspired by the joy, sadness, and resilience, depicted through portraiture.&nbsp;

<a href="https://brisbaneportraitprize.org/">Enter&nbsp;2025 Brisbane Portrait Prize</a>

Gerwin Davies works with elaborate and stylised costumed figures, often set in a constructed landscape, which subverts our expectations of a self-portrait by concealing the face. "Where the camera is conventionally claimed to possess a unique capacity for revealing something of a subject to its viewer, in my own practice, I instead perform acts of queer photographic dis/appearance. My figure is buried beneath elaborate and shimmering costumes that mutually entice yet resist the viewer’s examination while the image itself is polished and manicured, often taking on a slick, implausible and synthetic glow." This propels the viewer to think about the construction of identity and branding, hence the prominance of the Pepsi logo. Playing with ideas of visibility and invisibility, the image points to the complexity of constructing and concealing identity in contemporary society. "This double bind of a figure both conspicuously stood before the lens while remaining nowhere to be seen, reflects my ongoing interest in the potentials and powers of queer representational in/visibility through which subjects are able to pass before the camera un/seen."

Rosella Namok grew up in the remote coastal location of Temple Bay, north of the Lockhart River. She is one of Australia's best known Indigenous artists. In this portrait Rosella Namok is at work. With her white gloves on she is using a blow torch to finish one of her bronze sculptures. She intensely concentrates on the task at hand as the flames take hold. "Her distinctive linear imagery is derived through a technique developed from watching her grandmother draw in the sand. She recounts these patterns by pulling her fingers through multiple layers of wet and dry paint. Fire and molten bronze now transpose Rosella's paintings into mystical cultural artefacts." The portrait directly conveys how important the act of making is to Rosella, just as the process of making is central to the work of the artist. Rosella Namuk brings a modern sensibility and outlook to traditional themes. Cooee Art Leven describes her work as "...expressions of a way of life in Lockhart River where ancestral heritage is part of everyday life, and tradition finds form in the modern." Rosella Namok has had many solo exhibitions in Australia and internationally and her work is held in many major collections. She and David Paulsen are both represented by Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane. 

This artwork is a self-portrait "...channelling the unspeakable frustrations and ambivalence of motherhood". Danielle O'Brien uses dramatic imagery to draw attention to the tensions and anxiety of balancing the tasks of parenting in the modern world. The screaming woman, with her windswept hair, holds a placenta with the umbilical cord acting as a lasoo to catch her children. Her body morphs into an empty tent tethered to the ground. Danielle O'Brien's imaginative works often feature women with a sometimes comic nod to their relationships with men and children. "With both humour and rage, I represent my body as an abandoned shelter, flapping in a storm. It is tethered to the earth and screaming into the void, wielding an umbilical cord and placenta like a lasso to retrieve the brood. It's the balancing act of protection and control that comes with raising teenagers."

This self portrait pushes the boundaries of photographic portraiture and draws attention to the processes of image making and how the construction of identity and likeness is often a manipulated process. "Everyone has a version of what they look like, and this technique flips that on its head. I let the process dictate the image. It's different every time, and it changes how I see myself. The process involves photographing his own reflection in liquid. I've been experimenting with using various liquids as a means of creating spontaneous gestures within my work. This purposeful, distorted self-portrait is a challenge to myself on what a photograph can be. The refracted and reflected light playing off the peaks and troughs of the moving liquid project a familiar image of reflection. Yet during this suspension of movement, the liquid reveals a distorted & often grotesque image of self. The way in which the image appears is also reminiscent of agitating a developer tray and revealing a black and white darkroom print." This is one of a series of self portraits, and Sam Scoufos is now experimenting with using this technique for portraits of other people.

Alissa Lamb's carefully constructured and symbolic portrait offers an insight into the sitter, her daughter, Poppy. The vividness of the red background, the bright colours of the dress and the extravagance of the unusual headpiece give this portrait enormous energy, as these elements contrast with the stillness of the gaze. "Traditional portraiture is so often used to broadcast a definitive, highly specific representation of the subject. The pose, attire and background all work as one to achieve one visual message. But humans - especially autistic girls - are multi-faceted. I wanted to portray the dichotomy that is my daughter - using a classical approach, with subtle twists. By contrasting Poppy’s rigid pose with her extravagant outfit, I tried to capture this contrast. The square canvas also upsets the usual rectangular format associated with portraiture. The boldness of the painting draws us into the young girl's spirited and lively world. It’s a visual reflection of her inner world of rules and uncertainty, masked by an outer layer of enchantment and enthusiasm for the world around her."

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Natalya Hughes is an accomplished Brisbane artist represented by Milani Gallery and is the Director of the Visual Arts honours program at QCAD, Griffith University. She taught Imogen in 2023. Both artist and sitter share a love of fabrics and pattern, but from different critical perspectives. As an artist, Imogen is inspired by Renaissance iconography, and her love of fabrics is due to the painterly way they are used to elevate the sitter. Natalya's work is based on a feminist critique, and the way fabric and 'feminine crafts' have been used historically by women, and seen by broader society. "This portrait takes a feminist position on the historical artist and muse dichotomy. The portrait is inspired by the aristocratic portraits of French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, where the sitter is elevated by the rendering of decadent clothing and fabrics." Natalya Hughes sits confidently in her studio, her working hands at rest.  looking directly at us with confidence, or even a sense of defiance. The textures of the various fabrics and surfaces have been rendered with great attention to detail, from the chair, to the shawl to, to the glass louvers, to Natalya's shoes. The artists love of feminine patterns and colour are clear. "Set against the backdrop of her own creative genius in the artist’s studio, the decorative patterns and feminine palette act as empowering regalia, a signifier of Natalya’s standing as an exceptional Brisbane artist." 

Brisbane Portrait Prize 2025