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On screen, Miranda Tapsell can usually be found hiding behind a character or “at least heightened version of myself”, but not this time. The much-loved actor best-known for The Sapphires and Top End Wedding makes her debut as a host in the new ABC series Portrait Artist of the Year.
“That kind of guerilla television was very new to me,” says Tapsell, who had to quickly adjust to trusting her instincts and speaking her mind instead of following a script. “I can only just look at a painting and tell you what I feel.”
Luke McGregor and Miranda Tapsell are the hosts of Portrait Artist of the Year on the ABC.
The five-part series, which Tapsell co-hosts alongside comedian Luke McGregor, pits professional artists against amateurs over four hours as they complete a portrait of a well-known Australian. Three subjects are painted each episode, with celebrity sitters including comedian Celia Pacquola, Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis, actor Mark Coles Smith and film critic Margaret Pomeranz.
The works are then judged by National Portrait Gallery of Australia director Bree Pickering, seven-time Archibald Prize finalist Abdul Abdullah and Robert Wellington, an associate professor of art history at the Australian National University. The overall winner receives a commission for a work that will hang in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
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“We wanted people who were really well practised at it to have a chance to showcase their stuff but also for people who were emerging to have a platform,” says McGregor of the choice to involve professional and non-professional artists. “Because even if they don’t win, they are still getting put in front of three really influential people in the space, as well as getting on screen. We hope the show feels like a win for them, just to be on it.”
The show has been adapted from the original long-running British series, which has resulted in winning portraits of conservationist Jane Goodall, actor Lenny Henry, singer Tom Jones and actor Alan Cumming being hung in London’s National Portrait Gallery.
McGregor is a big fan of the British version, saying “it feels like comfort food”.
“My wife and I watched it pretty regularly and so this was a no-brainer,” he says. “I really like art ... my dad’s really good at it and my daughter’s really good at it, so I’ve been adjacent to it. I did this thing called ‘Comedian and Curator’ in Hobart, where … the curator [spoke about the art] while I joked. It was just one of those things in my sphere and all of my interests aligned.”
McGregor says the series dispelled his idea that art “was a little bit paywalled”, requiring endless supplies and a lot of time. One artist painted solely using coffee grounds, another used black tape, another chose pencils, someone else used watercolours. “It reminded me that it’s all creating,” he says. “When I’m thinking about making people laugh, I just think about me standing over the microphone, but it did make me think there are some other ways I should be having fun on stage.”
Judges (from left) Abdul Abdullah, Bree Pickering and Robert Wellington.Credit: ABC TV
For Tapsell, who was pregnant during filming, the show’s appeal is that it puts the arts front and centre. “Even if our current government can’t see the benefit that Australians have seeing themselves reflected back, I think they can see it from an economical standpoint,” she says. “Every year, we contribute so much money to our economy. Because guess what, people want to have a night out and see a play; people want to go and see the Archibald Prize. So this myth that we don’t make any of the money back is just a lie.”
Tapsell says Portrait Artist of the Year also underlines our creativity. “This show is really reminding us that we don’t have to look to America or Europe for good art. We have our own way of expressing ourselves,” she says.
Comedian Celia Pacquola sits for a portrait during Portrait Artist of the Year.
“I mean for goodness sake, we’ve got rock paintings that are over 60,000 years old across the country. So we do have a rich history of art, and we do have incredible talent here that I’m really glad that we’re showcasing.”
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McGregor has had his portrait painted three times – and liked two of them. (He gave each the same feedback though, he says: “that I loved it”.) He found it a strange experience. “I’ve always been self-conscious about certain parts of my face ... I found it tricky, I didn’t really enjoy the process. But it was always really exciting to see what someone would do.”
Both hosts are happy they don’t have to judge the works produced, but Tapsell jokes she’d love to see the ABC splice a reel of all the times McGregor said “sorry”, as in, “Sorry, artists you need to put your brushes down.”
Despite all his apologising, for McGregor the show was also a reminder of when he was a keen artist as a child, when he even created comics that featured a character called Tin Can Man. “I have no idea what was in him, but he was a superhero who’d go around stopping crimes that were food-related,” he says, laughing. “It wasn’t very good, I didn’t get picked up.”
Portrait Artist of the Year screens at 8pm on Sundays on the ABC and is streaming on ABC iview.
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