Lecturer paints Paralympian for prestigious portrait prizes
Bianca Reynaud
Public relations assistant
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
An Avondale lecturer is painting a Paralympic gold medallist for two of Australia’s most prestigious art prizes.
Andy Collis’s sittings with Paralympian Liesl Tesch form part of his PhD.
Andy Collis will enter his portrait of Liesl Tesch for the Archibald and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prizes—the latter the world’s richest at $150,000. The portrait 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.
Andy and Liesl are friends, despite sharing little in common—“I’m not into sport at all,” says Andy. They met when Liesl came to see Andy’s painting of a mutual friend at the Gosford Regional Gallery. “Fascinated” with seeing the friend anew, Liesl agreed to her friend’s suggestion that she also sit for a portrait.
Andy describes the sessions as “like being in a hairdresser’s chair.” “You have this quiet, intimate time with the sitter. They open up and you get an insight into their world.”
Liesl’s world as a sportsperson revolves around the Paralympics. She won two silver medals in wheelchair basketball at the Paralympics in Sydney and Beijing and a bronze in Athens. She won gold in London but in sailing, cementing her success as one of Australia’s best athletes. “Out on the water, I’m just completely free,” says Liesl. “It’s like I don’t have a disability at all. The boat just carries me.”
Andy and Liesl rely on each other to paint an accurate picture—a poignant example being when Andy re-painted Liesl’s arms to give a more technically accurate view of what Paralympic sailing looks like.“It was a bit awkward,” says Liesl, “because my fellow sailors reacted to my arms reaching up; they thought I was flying a kite.”
“That planted a seed,” says Andy, appreciating that the change has also improved the artistic quality of the work by adding “dimension and movement.”
Liesl is impressed with how quickly Andy transforms a blank canvas into a character. “He has absolutely captured who I am.”
Judges have selected Andy’s portraits of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, the subject of one of Australia’s most publicised legal cases, and daughter Annie-Rose as semi-finalists for the Doug Moran over the past two years.