A Mid North Coast artist’s painting of one of his favourite musicians has earned him a finalist’s spot in the prestigious Brisbane Portrait Prize.
The painting - by Beechwood’s Brad Collins - depicts musician Kate Dillon, the lead singer and guitarist of the Brisbane-based Full Flower Moon Band, alongside her on-stage persona “Babyshakes”.
The prize: The oil on canvas painting will be exhibited at the State Library of Queensland from Saturday September 19, following the announcement of the prize winners on Friday night.
More than 600 portraits were submitted, with 63 finalists selected.
The top prize is $50,000.
Meet the artist: Collins has been painting “seriously” for the past eight years.
Aside from his work on canvases and murals, he is also an illustrator, photographer and videographer.
“Some of my human characters have bird heads, or some sort of anthropomorphic bird character with them,” Collins told the Mid North Coaster.
“I use a lot of my pieces to share something deeper with a slight tricky edge to it”.
“Sometimes it's a portrait I've painted of myself sitting next to my cartoon pelican character. [That represents me] opening up and fully accepting myself as a creative person, allowing myself to be vulnerable and expressing my creativity.”
Why Kate?: A fan of the Full Flower Moon Band for a number of years, Collins said he was inspired to paint Dillon after seeing an album cover featuring her in a mask.
“I immediately had that idea of Kate sitting next to herself wearing this mask as a bit of symbolism to the duality of a creative person, with the introvert on one side and the extrovert wearing the mask on the other side, who's kind of more gig-ready and public facing.”
Scene on the rise: Collins said he was “stoked” to represent the “thriving” Port Macquarie arts scene in the portrait prize.
“There's so many people who are just pumping work out… and everybody's really supportive of each other, which is a really incredible thing,” he said.
“If you're a local artist and you have a show, there's a pretty good chance that every single artist in Port Macquarie is going to be there for you.”