Megan Seres

It has taken me four days to find my voice but I will never find the words to express how deeply grateful I am to the Moran Foundation and to the judges

Greta Moran, Director, Moran Arts Foundation, 

Doug Hall AM, Art historian and Gallery Director

Ann Wallace, Award winning Australian Artist.

For the past 28 years the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (DMNPP) has encouraged both excellence and creativity in contemporary Australian portraiture by asking artists to interpret the look and personality of a chosen sitter, either unknown or well known.

The Moran Arts Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit organisation whose objective is to support the Arts in Australia through; The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prizes, the Free Moran School Photographic Workshops, and Juniper Hall exhibition space, Paddington NSW Australia.

Established by Doug and Greta Moran and Family in 1988 in celebration of Australia’s bicentennial, the Moran Arts Foundation fosters portraiture skills, excellence in photography and enhancing arts in education.

I am truly overwhelmed not only by being the recipient of this prestigious prize but also for the support and generosity that has been bestowed upon me.

It is an honour and a privilege to have met such wonderful people and to be amongst so many wonderful artists and photographers.

I would like to congratulate all the semi-finalists and the finalists of Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the Moran Contemporary Photographic special congratulations to winner Johannes Reinhardt for Mermaid Show and to all the semi-finalist and the finalists of the High School Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize with special congratulations to Christine Drew, Lachlan Starling and Tess Poyner.

Special thanks go to:

Scarlett my darling daughter for your loving, warm, patient nature and for bringing the fascinating stories of women and children in colonial Australia to my attention.

Greta Moran, for your warm welcome and wonderful conversations on Colonial Australia.

Doug Hall for your support, for speaking of my work so eloquently, great conversation and your wonderful sense of humour.

Anne Wallace for your support, great conversation and for being one of my all-time favourite artists.

Peter Moran for your incredibly wise words.

Daniel Thomas for your joie de vivre.

Richard Morecroft for hosting the prize with such aplomb and for your calming presence.

For fantastic support thanks also go to:

Jennifer Dempsey from the Moran Arts Foundation

Cathy Brown from the Moran Arts Foundation

Jillian Heggie from Tracey Mair Publicity

Craig Brush from the Moran Arts Foundation

And finally grateful thanks go to the following sponsors;

Moran Aged Care

Marsh

Foxtel Arts

This work was part of my ‘Dreams, Nightmares, Visions & Visitant’ series (please see under Exhibition)

In my graduating year of 2004, I was extremely grateful to be awarded the Bundanon Residency for the following year of 2005. During this time I was commissioned to do a large body of over 30+ paintings for Southern Star Studios for the TV show ‘Love My Way’.

A difficult decision was made to forgo the residency, spending just one day there. The following year in 2006, Niki Mortimer, curator at Bundanon Trust invited me to participate in ‘Emerging Talent’ at the Shoalhaven Regional Arts Centre. I was 6 1/2 months pregnant and once again unable to participate.

I have decided to share this with you as I believe artists sometimes have to make hard decisions that they may regret. Bundanon is an excellent opportunity for artists and one that I hope to attend in the future.

There have been many day visits to Bundanon where loads of inspiration has been found, from the Boyds artwork to the beautiful surrounding landscape.

Bundanon is Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s gift to the Australian people. Bundanon Trust supports arts practice and understanding of the arts through its residency, education, exhibition and performance programs. In preserving the natural and cultural heritage of its site Bundanon promotes the value of the landscape in all our lives.

This work is part of my ‘Dreams, Nightmares, Visions & Visitants’ series (please see under Exhibition)

There is a tendency in the human mind to reach out beyond the tangible and the visible.

Redlands Art Prize Collection is a vital teaching resource within Redlands and it is a great privilege to be a part of this significant collection.

Judge: Dr Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor & Director of UNSW Galleries, curator & art critic.

This work is part of my ‘Embodiment’ series (please see under Exhibition)

My BFA Graduation at the National Art School Sydney, in 2000 brought with it mixed feelings. Gratitude and joy at winning this award with both these paintings being purchased by well known art collector, philanthropist and MCA board member Reg Richardson and a deep sadness at leaving such a wonderful school.

I was given such great support by so many of its fantastic teachers! Highly recommend this school!

In 1998, my first year at the National Art School, I had so many great teachers. It was one of my favourite years as we worked across different electives. I had a wonderful teacher, who helped me to see the power of photography as a visual fine art medium.

Photography is an important aspect of my practice that still informs my work. By capturing the ephemeral nature of light, it enables me to see what things might look like, to reveal the world by degrees, to reveal secrets.

This award was and still is one of my greatest achievements and I feel very privileged to have been the recipient.

National Art School Sydney

Judge: Dr Ella Dreyfus, Australian Contemporary Artist

This work is part of my ‘In the Company of Women’ series (please see under Artwork)

Honoured to receive the Highly Commended award for ‘Fade into View’ which touches on the ambiguous nature of dreams, beauty and memories, of the unseen and unheard and the continual complexities of societal pressures.

Judges:

Adam Simms, Curatorial Director, Liverpool Street Gallery

Marisa Purcell, Australian Visual Artist

For the past 30+ years, Waverley Council has recognised, nurtured and awarded the artistic community by way of the Waverley Art Prize.

This work is part of ‘Figures in the Landscape’ series (please see under Artwork)

‘My Desolation Exhales’ – Light and shadow, silence and cries, presences and omissions, where the body is incomplete and fragmented and is only given a definite form by persistent effort. Where the land now forsaken, gives way to dark spaces, malevolence, strange visions and my desolation exhales.

The Calleen Art Award encourages originality and artistic merit, established in 1977 by Mrs Patricia Fagan OAM. The Cowra Regional Art Gallery aims to engage our community and visitors from across Australia and overseas in cultural experiences that foster an awareness, appreciation and enjoyment of the visual arts.

Judge:

Jane Watters, Gallery Director S.H.Ervin

I loved the theme of ‘Space and Place’ and immediately thought of the many untold stories of women’s contribution to Australia, from agriculture and domestic work to creating social communities that continue to shape who we are today.

I read on the Victorian Collections website that “women’s farm work is often rendered invisible because much of it is intangible and ephemeral, is characterised by relationships and oral tradition, and dismissed as just ‘domestic’ work when in fact this work is what has often sustained families, farms and communities. The layers of invisibility are even deeper for migrant and Indigenous women”.

Nillumbik Shire Council presents the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, a biannual acquisitive art prize open to emerging and established artists working in any medium across Australia. Artworks, responding to the themes of Place and Space can take any form, including (but not limited to) sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, textiles, photography, installation, sound digital, video, performative. The Prize is presented in association with Montsalvat.

Judges:

Godwin Bradbeer, Australian Visual Artist

Charlotte Day, Monash University Museum of Art

Danny Lacy, Senior Curator, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

This work is part of my ‘In the Company of Women’ series (please see under Artwork)

I’d hear her humming beside me in the dark. Half comforted, half terrified, I fold back the skin of time to find fragmented memories, an ambiguous existence. Painting through layering, fusing, erasure, disturbing the human form and surrounds, I find her. 

The Lethbridge Art Award is open to national and international artists for small-scale artworks. Entrants may submit 2D artworks up to 61cm (24 inches) in height or width. The Judging is based on three equally evaluated criteria of creativity, originality and skill.

This work is part of ‘Figures in the Landscape’ series (please see under Artwork)

Gallipoli

War is not simply two sided, it is multifaceted and one that is not easily understood by those who have not experienced it firsthand. Therefore it is in the method of showing as well as telling these stories that help us to understand as well as break down assumptions.

One of these assumptions for me was the climate of military manliness, but having had the privilege of hearing personal accounts of war both past and present, it was the extreme loyalty and friendships that provided a buffer in an unfamiliar world, the comfort, companionship and comradery that would be the anchor on which these men would depend in their darkest times that became pivotal to the context of this work.

Anthropologists say they were forming substitute kin networks, which I believe created deep bonds that perhaps for some were never experienced before or after the war. Losing friends in battle, having to withdraw, then leaving their kin behind, I am unable to fully comprehend what they must have suffered, such horrendous and ongoing losses.

I have heard it said that ‘grief is the weight of the one you hold’, if that is so, then what is the weight of all those who have been lost?

The true measure of war is its profound and often dramatic response to it and if friendships are a product of their time and place, then this moment that I wish to share with you is a sacred one.

Judge

Jane Watters, Gallery Director S.H. Ervin Gallery

This work is part of my ‘In the Company of Women’ series (please see under Artwork)

Many of my paintings to date are inspired by a Gothic sensibility and are drawn from 17th to 19th century discourse and motifs found in art, poetry, texts and films. I like to make high quality objects with a nod to the masters that are luscious, seductive and precious but on closer inspection reveal cultural upheavals.

‘Shadow Past’ represents the fragmented self and lost historical references to women.

Judges:

Hannah Presley, Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

Kelly Gallatly, Director of The Ian Potter Museum of Art The University of Melbourne.

Brad Spolding, Director of The Substation

Identity is often ambiguous, even strange, as it is both elusive and mutable. How much we give of ourselves depends on too many variables to be reliable. Yet here I am, still playing dress-ups from the past, linking myself to historical references that intrigue and inspire me.

Having begun in 2007, The Percivals is an open competition for artists. While showcasing the outstanding and innovative work currently being produced by Australian artists, the competition has also given many emerging artists an opportunity to engage with portraiture and share their expressions of themselves and those close to them.

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery - Pinnacles Gallery

Judges:

Dr Anne Sanders, Curatorial Researcher at National Portrait Gallery of Australia.

Noel Mason, TYTO Regional Art Gallery Coordinator, Contemporary Australian Artist.

Anna Prifti, Director at WestEnd Art Space, Contemporary Australian Artist.

Sponsors: Glencore

This work is part of my ‘In the Company of Women’ series (please see under Artwork)

“Women's histories are often frayed, a shabby tapestry forgotten and left in the corner for moths to nibble on. Metaphorically speaking, I am loosening the threads to unravel the past so that I may recreate the tapestry by weaving lost memories, meaning and hope together.”

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. It was founded by the artist, architect and arts advocate, Alderman Allan Gamble.

Judge

Cressida Campbell, Australian Visual Artist

In James Bridlebook “New Dark Age” he states in his chapter on climate “The climate crisis is also a crisis of knowledge and understanding,” Bridle writes, “What we perceive as weather in the moment shadows the globe as climate: tiny moments of turbulent activity through which we can barely grasp an unseen, unknowable totality.”

In response Niki Seth-Smith, Open Democracy states“ Climate becomes the grand metaphor for our overwhelming loss of knowledge and control.”“This brings us back to the theme of uncertainty. Humans are afraid of the darkness for a reason. We’re especially afraid if we’re blind-folded and others around us are able to see.”

Drawing on the above concepts I have begun a series of oil paintings that explore the notion of darkness, shadows, turbulence, the unseen, loss, blindness and finally the emptiness of both the landscape and ourselves when we are forsaken or forsake.

The Hahndorf Academy Heysen Prize was established in 1997 to commemorate the life and work of the internationally renowned, artist, Sir Hans Heysen (1877-1968).

Judges:

Penny Griggs, CEO of SALA Festival & Arts Industry Council of SA member.

Roy Ananda, Australian Visual Artist

Rebecca Madden, Australian Visual Artist

This work is part of my ‘In the Company of Women’ series (please see under Artwork)

Removed from their contrived surrounds, she has been placed in black diamond dust symbolic of the magical intermediary between woman and the unseen forces of nature that govern her fate. The veil does not conceal the face but acts as a membrane enclosing the true nature and power of the feminine force yearning to be free.

Judge:

Charlotte Day, Director of Monash University Museum of Art.

I became fascinated by the way women are often depicted as submissive or repentant within religious history paintings. There is something beguiling about these works that I feel both drawn to and repelled by.

The Submissive Self is influenced by the old masters use of chiaroscuro (light and dark) as well as many glazes.

The book represents human knowledge and its temporary nature. The skull represents human mortality; it is a symbol of wisdom that comes from living in the light of the truths. Mary Magdalene is bathed in light, her mirror image is placed in shadow which represents the darkening veil of submission, of not seeking knowledge and the strength of finding ones’ truth.

Judge: Dr Campbell Gray, Director of The University of Queensland Art Museum

This work is part of ‘Figures in the Landscape’ series (please see under Artwork)

Steeped in a naturalistic Australian landscape, ‘Intangible Mysteries of a Sense of Place’is the transformation of an idealised image from Australian art history;

I wanted to bring forth its hidden potential by threading a historical lineage that is still relevant today, to nudge and reconfigure the original historical narrative to give voice to how our experiences of the land enrich our understanding of who we are, for good or for bad.

When I began this oil painting, I was interested in creating a subtle and ambiguous work, binding the figure to the landscape rather than ownership of the land, as the work unfolded, however, this semi-transparent ghostly figure wove into larger metaphors of land, pain and violence.

PATRON: David Dridan OAM

Judges:

Christopher Orchard, Australian Visual Artist

Emma Fey (Guildhouse Executive Director)

Godwin Bradbeer, Australian Visual Artist

Signal Point Gallery, Goolwa South Australia

This work is part of ‘Figures in the Landscape’ series (please see under Artwork)

‘Lost Girls’ is a homage to the writer Joan Lindsay of Picnic at Hanging Rock and to the women and girls who have disappeared over many centuries.

‘Lost Girls’ defines the unnerving moment, when the girls and the governess disappeared into the rocky landscape of the Australian Bush.

Fisher’s Ghost Art Award is an annual art prize inviting artists to submit works in a variety of artistic categories and mediums.

Judges:

Tony Albert, Australian Visual Artist

Fiona Davies, Australia Visual Artist

Mikala Tai, Director 4A Centre for Comtemporary Asian Art

Identity is often ambiguous, even strange, as it is both elusive and mutable. How much we give of ourselves depends on too many variables to be reliable. Yet here I am, still playing dress-ups from the past, linking myself to historical references that intrigue and inspire me.

Bowral Art Gallery

Sponsors:

Tim and Particia Copes

Judge:

Sally Ryan, Traditional Australian Artist

This work is part of ‘Figures in the Landscape’ series (please see under Artwork)

The Danger of a Single Story

The title suggests that in any one event there is more than one interpretation and by omitting certain viewpoints we are in danger of a divergence from the truth.

My research into feminine histories of European 17th - 19th century and early European Settlement led me on an exploration of social structures, ownership, oppression, beauty, memory, displacement and isolation.

There is a propensity to negate the 'Other' (Female, Indigenous, Refugee and Migrant) as separate, which disconnects us from our humaneness. We, like the 'Other' become a silhouette of ourselves.

Another area of interest is how I could represent the landscape not as something to conquer and destroy, but how it was once seen, as a terrible beauty, the sublime, as in Edmund Burke's sublime evidenced through writers such as Homer, Horace, Virgil, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. It brings in to question our own Paradise Lost, of 'shades of death, A universe of death.....' ( Milton)

'The Danger of a Single Story' offers a key to unlock the enormity of these recurrent themes juxtaposed with the fleeting poetic beauty and loss of ourselves and the land.

It is the exploration of the boundaries between what is observed, what is imagined and what is hidden or forgotten.

Established in 1947, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia's oldest and most prestigious local government art award. It was founded by the artist, architect and arts advocate, Alderman Allan Gamble.

Judge

Kirsten Paisley, Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Australia

‘The Forbidden Room’ was part of the series ‘Fairy-Tales, Myth & Imaginative Tales 2016. Please see under Exhibitions.

In celebration of our 40th anniversary, the Kirribilli Centre is holding an art prize. The stunning historical building that we have been lucky enough to use as the Kirribilli Centre since our official opening in 1975, will become an art gallery from Friday May 6th to Sunday May 8th in order to showcase the shortlisted entries.

Judge:

Nick Vickers, Independent Art Curator & Co-ordinator of Alumni Relations at UNSW Art & Design.

Megan Seres did the paintings used in Love My Way for Claudia Karvan’s character, artist Frankie. It was there that she met Brendan Cowell, who co-wrote and starred in the award-winning Australian television drama series. Cowell then asked her to do a painting for his 2005 short film Europe.

“Brendan is a man of ferocious spirit, energy and audacity,” says Seres. “I find him inspirational; he has taught me that taking risks can lead to the most exciting moment. He has the ability to see through darkness and perceive truth in human nature. This was why I asked him to sit for me.”

Last year, Cowell played Hamlet for Bell Shakespeare. In an interview about the production he said: “you wake up all the little children in your head and it’s hard to put them back to sleep.”

“After the death of Hamlet’s father, the over-analytical Hamlet is besieged with suspicions, apparitions and wild imaginings,” says Seres. “Like Goya’s macabre Black Paintings, with their images of monsters, ghouls and other supernatural figures, Hamlet’s dark and disturbing journey was brought into the light by Brendan’s ability to let the darkness slide out of the hidey-hole of his imagination into the heart of truth.

“In my painting, I have tried to embody the inner turmoil, vulnerability and sense of impending doom that Brendan portrayed so beautifully as Hamlet. The ambiguity of Hamlet’s last line, ‘the rest is silence’, was incredibly alluring as a title.”

Born in Sydney in 1962, Seres graduated from the National Art School with Honours in 2004. In 2005, she was awarded a residency at Bundanoon. She has exhibited since 1998. She was represented in the 2001 Blake Prize and touring exhibition, the 2003 Mosman Art Prize, the 2008 Crockett Group Art Prize, and won the 2004 Redlands Art Prize. This is her first time in the Archibald.

Sponsor: Myer

Judges:

Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW

President, Steven Lowy - Director of Westfield Holdings.

Vice President, Sandra McPhee -Senior Executive of Qantas Airways Limited.

Memeber, David Baffsky - - Honorary Chairman of Accor Asia Pacific.

Member, Guido Belgiorno-Nettis - Joint Managing Director of Transfield Holdings Pty Ltd

Member, Anne Fulwood - TV Journalist, Corporate & media consultancy

Member, Dr Lindy Lee - Contemporary Australian Artist & Senior Lecturer.

Member, Professor Janice Reid - Vice-chancellor of University of Western Sydney.

Member, Mr John Schaeffer AO - Member of Nationa Gallery & Life Governor of the AGNSW.

Member, Mr Imants Tillers - Contemporary Australian Artist

Member, Ms Eleonora Triguboff - Contemporary Australian Artist

Member, Mr Peter Francis Young - Senior advisor RBS Group.

This work was inspired by the extraordinary nature of owls and the belief by some Australian Aboriginal groups that owls are the sacred spirits of women - good owls. There is a saying ‘Owls are sacred, because your sister is Owl, and the Owl is your sister’.

Established by the Whyalla Arts Council in 1972, the Whyalla Art Prize was initially designed to promote emerging artists; since this time the prize has flourished and developed into a significant national award and an important exhibition of contemporary art in Australia. Through this initiative, the Whyalla community has acquired an impressive and notable collection of artworks in iconic styles that reflect the spirit and the changing face of Australia.

Judges:

Elizabeth (Libby) Raupach OAM, Chair of the State Theatre Company of SA and State Opera SA, Deputy Chair of the Jam Factory and Windmill Performing Arts Company

Peter Walker, Director of Peter Walker Fine Art Gallery

Dr Steven Carson, Graduate Research Coordinator (Art) and Lecturer in Art, School of Creative Arts and Media

This work is of Paola Morabito who is an award-winning director. Her work spans the genres of both documentary and comedy. Morabito has enjoyed great success with her writing and directing talents, her short film 'I'm the one' premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

The Liverpool City Art Prize is a national exhibition, open to artists working in painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, ceramics and video art.

Judge:

Nicholas Harding, Australian Contemporary Artist

This work is part of my Liquid Light series (please see under Exhibition) that was inspired by my research into organisms, terrestrial and marine, that are bioluminescent.

Jellyfish give off a bioluminescent glow when disturbed. This enzyme, one of a group called luciferases (lucifer means “light bearer”), produces a highly energised molecule that quickly releases its energy as light—but as of yet, nobody had been able to isolate it from the jellyfish.

Over the past 72 years the Mosman Art Prize has developed in stature to become Australia’s most prestigious municipally funded art prize with a national profile.

As an acquisitive art award for painting, the winning artworks collected since 1947 form a splendid collection of modern and contemporary Australian art, reflecting all the developments in Australian art practice since 1947.

Judge:

Annette Larkin, Director of Annette Larkin Fine Art, Advisor, Contemporary Art Dealer & Valuer. Including 11 years as Associate Director and Head of Contemporary Art at Christie’s Australia.

This work was part of my Liquid Light series that was inspired by my research into organisms, terrestrial and marine, that are bioluminescent. I was interested in the idea of terrestrial, relating to humans/creatures inhabiting the land and that of the celestial which relates to heaven in a religious sense.

Heaven means the distant sky in which the sun, moon, and stars appear or move. Whereas firmament means the vault of the heavens. I imagined what this vault might look like and thought about our life blood swishing around our bodies, protected by invaders. This was then translated through the medium of oil paint, by building up layers of red glazes to create movement and luminosity. A place seen in the minds eye, but not easily entered.

The Blake Prize is a ground breaking exhibition which reflects the diversity of religious beliefs in Australia today, and for the past twenty years has included the work of indigenous Australian artists. The prize is named after poet and artist William Blake whose visionary ideas were the embodiment of art and religion.

This year’s selection embraces work by emerging artists working in a variety of media and with different religious interpretation. There are paintings, prints, mixed media, sculpture, artists’ books and an array of spiritual and religious works ranging from the quirky to the sublime

Judges:

Betty Churcher AO, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Author, Painter & TV Presenter

Marion Borgelt, Australian Visual Artist

Dr Ian Weeks, Honorary Professor, Fellow in Philosophy - Religion & Art & Author

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Sunday 16 December 3pm – The artists’ perspective 2001 Blake Prize selected artists Thomas Spence, Jeannette Siebols, Michael Roseth, Salvatore Gerardi and Megan Seres.

I am interested in preserving humanity and culture with all its complexities through portraiture. I like to paint portraits that show various human conditions and try to portray the interior self of the sitter by looking for something that is unique to them.

Through the subtle and direct effects of mark making and in this case painting, I am exploring the language that speaks of the human condition. The values and concerns of society and the effect that has on the individual, on how we navigate the world and the residual interchange between past, present and future.