Gymea artist Marc Etherington has been named a finalist in the Archibald Prize for the third year in a row.
He is also a finalist in this year’s Sulman Prize along with fellow shire artist Michelle Cawthorn.
The Archibald is awarded to the best portrait painting and the Sulman Prize is given to the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project.
Marc’s achievement is all the more extraordinary in that he is a self-taught artist who only started painting ten years ago.
“I’ve never been to art school,” Marc said.
“Because I’m self-taught I suppose the style of my art is more child-like than anything else. As an artist I guess I’m just winging it.”
Marc grew up in Gymea Bay and has lived in the shire all his life except for eight years in Canada where he moved with wife Kate and where he worked various jobs such as public works and loading aircraft.
During this time he was also a stay-at-home father, looking after his children Ava and Lars.
It was during this time that he took up art.
Now living back in Gymea, Marc works at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, preparing the gallery’s exhibition spaces for new shows.
When not working at Hazelhurst, Marc works out of his Gymea garage making paintings and wooden sculptures.
Marc’s entry in the 2017 Archibald is of his close friend and fellow artist, Paul Williams in his studio, who also works at Hazelhurst as well as teaching art.
Marc said his work tries to capture the creativity, chaos and energy of Paul’s studio and tries to capture the “uncertainty, anxiety and coffee consumption prevalent in his life as an artist”.
Marc is modest about being selected as a finalist for the third time in one of Australia’s most prestigious art awards.
“The Art Gallery of NSW got over 800 entries this year and the gallery trustees pick 44 works from these, so I’m just lucky.”
His entry in the Sulman Prize is called That’s Life though, a painting of his fish tank at home.
Shire artist Michelle Cawthorn, who also works at Hazelhurst, is a finalist in the Sulman Prize for her work Eunice, a work in pen, graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper.
She said her work is concerned with memory and its mutability.
“It represents a remembered me, both real and fictional at once,” she said.
“When I try to recollect the girl I was, she is a strange amalgam of gestures and thoughts, unsure of her place in the world, stepping cautiously from girlhood into an uncertain future.”
The Winners of the Archibald and Sulman Prizes will be announced on July 28.
