People crave stories; it is almost as though it is threaded through our DNA. So it is not surprising, then, that a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) prefaces storytelling over conventional (and arguably more static) interpretations of portraiture.
Responding to a challenge by long-term patron Tim Fairfax AC – who wanted to see the organisation ‘play in spaces it hadn’t played in before’ according to Director of Exhibitions, Sandra Bruce – the Gallery invited 23 artists and collectives ‘to create a new work that expands on, and transcends, conventional notions of portraiture’. The resulting commissions were unveiled this past weekend in Canberra.
Where this exhibition gets interesting, is that those 23 creatives are artists who would not conventionally call themselves portraitists, which drives the exhibition into a collision with a very niche genre, priming it to break through its constraints.
Excerpt about Sally Smart
There is also an ephemeral/performative element to Gough’s work, which connects with Amrita Hepi’s photographs that document what could be considered a ‘performed portrait’. This has long been an interest of artist Sally Smart, whose new work of 10 puppet sculptures consolidates 30 years of practice exploring the intersection of feminism, body and performance – a cross-genre use of medium. She says, ‘The language of the puppet has always been interesting from the psychology of it,’ sitting in for, and yet suturing storytelling with theatrics of identity.
