my attempts to spread art literacy

Marcus Wills The Archibald Prize Winner 2006 " The Paul Juraszek monolith (after Marcus Gheeraerts).

Its  dark and monstrous…yet I congratulate the judges of the most prestigious portraiture prize in Australia on making the right choice.

What I like about it:

* It definitely captures your attention

*Its dark and moody, and active like the inner workings of one's mind

* Its 3 dimensional approach to the subject. Its not just a painting of a face, its a statement on Juraszek as a person; his mind, his work, his constant reformation and the people who contribute to that.

*Intriguing — you can look at it for hours inhaling not only the texture, the technique and the artistry– but also the activity that is taking place and what it all means. What do you think it means? What is it trying to show? What statment is he trying to make? Why did he choose this particular approach? What does it say about the person?

Who is Paul Juraszek and why did Wills choose this creative (controversial) way to portray him? ie Why on God's brown earth would you choose to hollow out a contemporary man's head, multiply the poor man 29 times in the portrait and place him in medieval clothing? Why is the whole mood medieval? What is it with the fable connotations? (sorry I didn't didn't realise you hadn't analysed it that far)

Perhaps a little background lesson will help…

 "Juraszek is a Melbourne-based sculptor, who makes mostly animals from myths and legends. "As it turned out he suited the subject even better than I could possibly have imagined," says Wills.

"Juraszek appears in the painting 29 times and in most cases the sculptures featured are his. The original etching is an allegory about the reformation. At the bottom of the painting there are iconoclasts smashing up relics, bones and bibles and tossing them into a pit. Behind are clerics and, one assumes, their congregation collecting the relics and taking them away. All over the head, little religious ceremonies are taking place with monkeys involved in several of them - Gheeraerts' dig at Catholicism one imagines. In Wills' version it is Juraszek's sculptures that are being smashed and then rescued by others. "In most of the little scenes the people are doing similar things to those in the original painting though I don't see my version as a religious comment," says Wills. Instead he sees it as "a kind of an allegory about the artist." (The Archibald Prize Website, 2006)"

Don't forget to check out the other entries and finalists in the Prize… http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au