Andy paints Lindy for Archy

And studies artist–sitter relationship for doctorate

Anne Little
Bachelor of Arts student
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

A portrait an Avondale lecturer is entering into the Archibald Prize reveals more about the subject of one of Australia’s most publicised legal cases.

Andy Collis wanted to paint an “honest” portrait of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton because “it struck me that many people made up their minds about her based on how she appeared in photographs and on the TV news.” Lindy was wrongly convicted in 1982 of the murder of her baby daughter, Azaria, who was taken by a dingo at the then Ayers Rock in 1980.

The portrait of Lindy forms part of Andy’s doctoral thesis, The human touch? What is the value of the artist–sitter relationship to contemporary portrait painting?, in which he argues that to achieve authenticity artists must spend time with their subjects. “If you know the person you’re painting, you bring all your knowledge of that person—memories, affection, whatever—to the session.”

The length of the session is important, too, says Andy, because there are “thousands of looks and, importantly, just as many thoughts going into the painting.”

Andy’s dean, Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud, describes his four-hour sitting as “comfortable” because he had an existing professional relationship with Andy, a senior lecturer in visual arts in the School of Humanities and Creative Arts, and because the two share interests.

This connection, says Andy, gives painted portraits more “intimacy” than photographed portraits, which are the product of a mechanical device that responds to light and places everything into a flat image. Despite how the photographer feels about their subject, the camera is “totally indiscriminate and emotionless about what it takes,” says Andy.