High praise for award winner

Moreton Bay artist Marion Rodgers as brought home a $10,000 top award from this year's Brisbane Portrait Prize.

Rodgers, an abstract photographer from Ocean View, won the Digital Prize for her “unearthly self-portrait” Paradox.

"This self-portrait was of necessity, a frozen moment in time, in my life,” she said.

“My object was to create an impressionistic image of a pensive figure, not necessarily a lifelike one, but showing a narrative of identity and elements of my life.”

Set against the backdrop of an overflowing bookcase, the image nods to Rodgers’ intellectual and creative curiosity, reflecting a lifetime of learning and artistic exploration.

Captured in-camera, the deliberately blurred and out-of-shape image highlights emotion over clarity, inviting viewers to feel rather than simply see.

“I was endeavouring to depict a thoughtful and avid reader/photographer,” Rodgers said.

“The main issue, as I saw it, was how to create the impression of a somewhat surreal, ethereal figure and lend form to the unseen.

“The meaning of a subject can often be more clearly seen in abstraction, so distortion was the key.”

Chief Judge Jason Smith said: “There is a humility but understated confidence to this self-portrait.

“For me it is a self-portrait of delicacy and determination; of self-awareness and self-doubt; of resilience and a relish for life.

“It is simultaneously revealing and withholding – allusive and suggestive in its narrative rather than obvious or prescriptive.”

Specialising in Impressionistic portraiture and abstraction, Rodgers has lived and worked in Brisbane for more than 60 years with solo shows at the Queensland Centre for Photography.

Her work has been published in the UK and Amercia and she has been a finalist in major art awards. This is her fourth time in the Brisbane Portrait Prize.

Brisbane Portrait Prize winners included:

• Gus Eagleton – Lord Mayor's Prize
• David Bongiorno – Performing Arts and Music Award
• Rebecca Davis – Sylvia Jones Prize for Women Artists
• Kuweni Dias Mendis and Grant X Wilkes – Packers Prize
• Connor Bashar – Next Gen Prize (for artists 18 and under)
• Kuweni Dias Mendis and Grant X Wilkes – Metro Arts Experimental Portraiture Prize
• Ruby Herrenberg – Emerging Artist
• Stella Valente – Emerging Artist