Sages up for Archibald
JENNY Sages is a finalist in this year’s Archibald Prize – the 20th time she has been up for the prestigious portrait prize to date. But until a few months ago, the artist was struggling to decide on a subject for her painting to follow last year’s entry – a portrait of her beloved late husband, Jack.
JENNY Sages is a finalist in this year’s Archibald Prize – the 20th time she has been up for the prestigious portrait prize to date. But until a few months ago, the artist was struggling to decide on a subject for her painting to follow last year’s entry – a portrait of her beloved late husband, Jack.
“Jack’s portrait was very personal and meaningful. After doing that with all my heart, what can I do now? Pick some celebrity and do a portrait? It would be trivial for me,” Sages, 78, told The AJN from her Sydney studio.
At the time, the Tweed River Art Gallery was showing an exhibition of her work. It was accompanied by a documentary by filmmaker Catherine Hunter, which included footage of Jack. One morning, Sages and her daughter Tanya visited the exhibition to take some photos and found the usually quiet gallery filled with Jack’s voice, loud and clear, being broadcast overhead from the documentary. “We looked at each other and both started sobbing. Tears flowing, Tanya picked up her camera and began to photograph my grief,” Sages recalled.
When they got home, they looked at the photos and then looked at each other: “We just nodded. We both knew.”
Sages was her own subject. In the following weeks, she worked on the self-portrait titled After Jack.
It’s only the second time she has done a self-portrait. “I wouldn’t call it cathartic, but everything that I do, I want a painting, a body of work, that talks to me,” said Sages.
After Jack is one of 41 finalists from 839 entries in the Archibald Prize, which carries a first prize of $75,000. The winner will be announced on Friday, March 30 by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Asked if she’s holding out for the big prize after all these years, she said: “Not really. I can’t take it on board.”
CHANTAL ABITBOL
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