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Brisbane-based artist Gus Eagleton is used to working with blank canvases that stretch hundreds of metres wide and up to six storeys high.
But on Friday, a painting about one-metre high earned the muralist $50,000 and one of the city’s top art accolades.
“It was unbelievable,” Eagleton said after his portrait of fellow street artist Fintan Magee was awarded this year’s Brisbane Portrait Prize.
Brisbane-based artist Gus Eagleton with his winning piece, “In the Studio with Fintan Magee”.Credit: Brisbane Portrait Prize
“I knew I had a strong piece … but with the prize, you never know who’s going to win.”
Eagleton met Magee in 2010, about a year after moving from Coffs Harbour to Brisbane to study fine art at the Queensland College of Art and Design.
“Fintan is kind of one generation above me,” he explained. “We connected through painting, street art and graffiti.”
Eagleton remembers a pivotal moment in their friendship, when the pair went to paint an abandoned building in Brisbane.
“I asked him what he did for a living, and he was like, ‘What do you mean? I do this for a living.’
“I was like, wow, you can actually make money out of this.”
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The pair have now been friends and collaborators for many years.
To have Magee sit for his first entry in the Brisbane Portrait Prize, and to then win, was a full-circle moment for Eagleton.
“I’ve been meaning to enter [BPP] nearly every year, but painting murals and large-scale works actually takes up quite a lot of time,” he said.
“But I felt like this year was a good year to enter.”
In the Studio with Fintan Magee (acrylic and aerosol on canvas) depicts Eagleton’s subject twice.
This, he said, was in homage to his friend’s street-art roots – with graffiti artists historically keeping their identities hidden – and his acclaim as a global muralist, with celebrated works in London, Vienna, Miami, Rome and Moscow.
“In the Studio with Fintan Magee” secured $50,000 for artist Gus Eagleton. Credit: Brisbane Portrait Prize
“I wanted to play with the two sides of Fintan. One where he’s a bit unsure and anonymous, and the other more proud and determined,” Eagleton said.
The head judge of this year’s prize, Jason Smith, described Eagleton’s entry as “exceptionally accomplished – conceptually and technically”.
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“The composition is testing – it pushes its subject to the very edge of the canvas; indeed, beyond the picture plane – yet it is beautifully balanced,” Smith says.
“It is an unusual double portrait of the same subject, and its literal merging of the body to suggest only three legs instead of four is a captivating and intriguing anchor to the picture.”
Other winners announced during Friday night’s ceremony at the State Library of Queensland included Marion Rodgers, David Bongiorno, Rebecca Davis and Connor Bashar.
“These artworks highlight the rich depth of talent and ingenuity of Brisbane artists, and also give us special insight into the lives of the sitters and the times in which we live,” said Brisbane Portrait Prize chair Anna Reynolds.
“In addition to the well-known faces, there is space for showcasing the richness of humanity and revealing the nobility inherent in the everyday.”
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said Brisbane City Council, a key contributor to the $50,000 prize, said it was “incredibly proud to support one of the city’s cultural highlights”, adding that every entry contributed “something powerful to Brisbane’s story”.
The Brisbane Portrait Prize Finalists Exhibition runs from September 20 to November 9 at the State Library of Queensland’s Level 2 gallery.
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