“The Artists Fate”, a painting in my nightmare series has been selected as a finalist in the Sulman Prize (subject/genre paintings & murals) which along with the Wynne Prize (Landscape and Sculpture) is showing with The Archibald Prize (Portraits) at the Art Gallery of NSW.

This painting could be about the artist’s death or it could simply be a “literal translation in paint” of how an artist feels when rejected by, judges in an art prize, a client, a dealer or a gallery. Of course almost everyone suffers from some form of rejection at various stages in their life and most are much more significant than a self absorbed artist’s feelings of disappointment. For example, the end of a relationship or termination of employment can generate massive feelings of rejection and this painting endeavours to show the pain of this emotion in pictorial form rather than in words.

Rejection feels like:
it has cost an arm and a leg
being poked in the eye with a sharp stick
being emasculated
having your heart ripped out
and being left completely gutted!