Artists make dash for Archibald deadline
It’s 3:45pm and the countdown is on to the final entry day for this year’s Archibald, Sulman and Wynne awards.
Two packing room assistants stand at either end of the steel revolving door, watching for latecomers. The parking lot is almost empty.
More than 570 entries flooded into the Art Gallery of NSW on Friday, the final day of submissions for the contemporary art awards for which Archibald is most famous. However, there are always a few artists who leave delivery to the last minute – underestimating the effort it takes to put together a canvas for public exhibition, the time it takes to pack it up and get it from studio to gallery during rush hour on a Friday afternoon, or simply get caught up in some kind of misfortune.
One of the last lucky winners was first-time Wynne Award attendee Matthew Cook, who set off for the gallery from Murwillumbah on the NSW Far North Coast at 2am. He arrives with more than an hour of sleepless time, but discovers that the wind has damaged his canvas during the eight-hour journey.
“I didn’t really sleep and when I got here the wind was so strong it blew under the tarp and took off,” he says. “I did a good job making it perfect and now I have to take it back.”
The monumental landscape of Warrumbungles removes the staples as they rest on the car’s roof racks, then re-staples them in the dock as they lean against the car for storage and evaluation.
The three artists called to warn the packing room staff that they were late. Cook is still punching when the docks officially close at 4:37 p.m., just after artist Alice Xu compliments her entry from behind the back seat of an Uber. The driver takes a photo of his passenger and his work in case he gets hanged. Cook plans to turn around in the rain and head back to Murwillumbah. He doesn’t know where to stand, where to sleep.
Earlier, ceramist Casey Chen, a 2025 Wynne Award finalist, sits cross-legged on a wooden pallet on the dock floor, nursing a vase of plums still warm from the kiln. He puts the finishing touches on it by applying glue to the base to add gold leaf.
“It’s funny. I worked really hard to avoid being in this situation again,” Chen says. “It always takes longer than I expected.”
Alexis Wildman, the gallery’s senior installation technician, said there had been a noticeable increase in the number of sculptures entered for the Wynne Award and the number of mixed media across all three awards. “We saw lots of politicians, drag queens, TV personalities or influencers, and lots of nudes, which is always fun.”
Artist Camellia Morris was hung as a 2024 Archibald finalist for her portrait of Blue Wiggle Anthony Field. This year, the Yellow and Red Wiggles arrived with a four-panel portrait of Greg Page and Murray Cook. Studio A, dedicated to empowering artists with disabilities, dropped off seven submissions, including five for Archibald, after waiting for Meagan Pelham to perfect her portrait of journalist and television host Jessica Rowe.
This year’s topics include Ahmed al Ahmed, who neutralized one of the shooters during the Bondi terror attack. It was painted by Sydney artist Julia Dover. Hayden Bone painted her brother Cameron McEvoy, who is officially the fastest swimmer in history over 50 metres.
“Cameron’s journey back to Olympic gold wasn’t just about speed on the water; it was about reinvention, discipline and a relentless pursuit,” Bone said on social media. “It is a privilege to transfer this journey to canvas.”
Last year, Jaq Grantford followed up his portrait of sisters Antonia and Nicole Kidman with a painting by composer Elena Kats-Chernin. Mohammed Mustafa, an emergency physician who did two stints in Gaza hospitals during the last war, sat next to Luke Cornish.
Caroline Zilinsky painted Nicky and Simone Zimmermann, founders of fashion brand Zimmermann, and five-time Archibald finalist Nick Stathopoulos painted legendary filmmaker Margaret Fink, now in her 90s. Stathopoulos’s article about Sudanese refugee lawyer Deng Adut was chosen as People’s Choice in 2016.
This year’s finalists will be announced on April 30, and the winners will be announced on May 8.
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