IN THE FRAME
Artist Andrew Bonneau captures pearl virtuoso Nicholas Paspaley Jr.
Artist Andrew Bonneau captures pearl virtuoso Nicholas Paspaley Jr.
Painting the executive chairman of Australia’s most famous pearl farming family is no easy task, as artist Andrew Bonneau discovered, travelling more than 2,500 kilometres to perfectly capture Nicholas Paspaley Jr.
Cairns-based Bonneau spent a week at the Paspaley family home in Wagga Wagga with his muse before borrowing his sitter’s shirt to place on a mannequin for finishing touches in his studio back in Cairns. Then it was a visit to the pearls, of course, in Sydney.
“He is a bit of a night owl, so each night we would all have dinner together and then spend three or four hours in a painting session, chatting, drinking jasmine tea and listening to music,” recalls Bonneau. “I painted the head from life and sketched in the hands and body. I then took the canvas back to my studio [in Cairns], set up his shirt on a mannequin and painted it. I was also able to spend five days at the Paspaley pearl room in Martin Place, Sydney, painting the pearls from life.”
Bonneau, a graduate of the National Art School and finalist in the prestigious Doug Moran and Archibald national portrait prizes, beautifully blends nature and light with traditional portrait painting to bring his subjects to life.
The artist and sitter were matched together by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) as part of a special commission series of 20 portraits called 20/20 – which also includes singer Jessica Mauboy by David Rosetzky and actress Jacki Weaver by John Tsiavis – to celebrate the Canberra institution’s 20th anniversary. Next year the NPG will also introduce the Darling Portrait Prize, a new annual portrait prize for Australian painters painting Australian sitters, worth $75,000. 20/20 can be seen at the NPG until February 10, 2019. For more information, go to www.portrait.gov.au.