Three Taranaki artists in portrait award finals
Kaitiakitanga, eirene (inner peace) and golden syrup have helped three Taranaki artists shine on the national stage.
Jana Branca, Jasmine Middlebrook and Maryanne Shearman are among the 38 finalists for this year’s Adam Portraiture Award.
Branca said the portrait of her sister-in-law that helped her gain a nomination reflected a peaceful acceptance of reality.
It was titled Eirene, which in Greek meant peace or reuniting what was once separated, she said.
The award is sponsored by the Adam Foundation and is one of the longest-running artist prizes in New Zealand.
Branca said she trained to paint live in South Africa, her home country, but then started making portraits after taking pictures of people. “I usually take 300 pictures before I find the right one.”
The 39-year-old said she moved to Taranaki in October 2016, after her husband got a job offer in the oil and gas industry.
The painting of her sister-in-law was based on a picture taken in December, when Natasja Branca was visiting with her family, she said. She captured a natural moment when Natasja was shifting on a chair at her farm in rural Taranaki.
“I was trying to capture the idea of having an internal peace despite what’s happening around you. There is a tension between a hope for the future and the fact that she is not quite there yet.”
Branca said she became more and more experienced in portraiture by looking for faces that could breathe emotions.
“We know what it’s like to have skin, in a way that we don’t know what it’s like to have leaves or feathers,” she said.
Being a finalist for the biennial award means Branca’s portrait will be shown at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata in Wellington, and she could win $20,000.
She said it was the third time she had received a nomination, after being a finalist in 2020 and 2022.
Ōakura-based artist Maryanne Shearman was one of the 451 people who entered the competition, and is also one of the finalists. “I have never entered, so I am super stoked,” she said.
The 38-year-old said she grew up in Lower Hutt but moved to Taranaki in 2014 after travelling the country on a bus with her young family.
Shearman said she also made her portraits after taking pictures of people and spending hours studying what she would like to convey with her paintings.
Her paintings were illustrations of biculturalism, hope and sustainability, she said, and her most political yet was the one she made of ecologist and community organiser Tuhi-ao Bailey.
The portrait, which gained her a spot among the finalists, portrayed kaitiakitanga and a commitment to the environment, Shearman said.
It showed Bailey walking in the food forest of Parihaka, at ease in her space.
Jasmine Middlebrook also gained a nomination as a finalist with her painting of two children pouring golden syrup over a cob of corn.