Janelle Thomas wins Kilgour Prize 2015: Vote now for People's Choice

SYDNEY artist Janelle Thomas is the winner of the $50,000 Kilgour Art Prize offered through Newcastle Art Gallery.

Thomas’s work, Helen Ross, 94, with Kirsty 2015, is an oil on linen portrait of Central Coast identity Helen Ross and her dog Kirsty.

Thomas’s work was selected from 30 finalists by judges Angus Trimble of the National Portrait Gallery, Ross Woodrow of the Griffith Centre for Creative Arts Research and Newcastle Art Gallery manager Lauretta Morton.

The prize, one of the richest portrait awards in Australia, is financed by the Jack Noel Kilgour bequest. Kilgour was an Australian artist and teacher known for his academic modernism. He died in 1987.

‘‘It was a difficult selection process for the judges,’’ Morton said.  ‘‘The quality of this year’s Kilgour Prize submissions was top notch.’’

Morton said of Thomas’s winning work: ‘‘The judges agreed that her very personal portrait was deftly executed and encapsulated the strong bond and personality of the subjects.’’

Thomas, who came to art only in the last five years, was a surprised and happy winner. She does not have an agent and has not had a solo show of her work yet.

‘‘I spent a ridiculous amount of time on it,’’ she said of the winning work. ‘‘It is my first finished portrait.’’

She said she has always been drawn to  spending time with older people, and thought Mrs Ross, an active nonagenarian, would make a good subject.

‘‘It started as an experiment,’’ she said, ‘‘because I wanted to experiment with how I painted it. I’ve been told there is a certain sensitivity to how I paint.

‘‘It comes down to a delicacy of putting the brush marks on it. It also means showing the form of the features, in a more sensitive way.’’

Ross turned out to be perfect subject for Thomas. ‘‘She is so amazing. Learning to paint is learning to see, constantly correcting. I’ve never seen light of those colours on anyone’s skin. As she was sitting there, all these colours came bouncing off her skin. I did a thumbnail just to capture the colours.’’

Thomas worked with Mrs Ross in a single sitting that began late morning and continued through to sunset with a couple of breaks.

‘‘She kept so still, I couldn’t believe it,’’ Thomas said. ‘‘And the dog [Kirsty] sat still like a statue.’’

Thomas, who has a Masters in Art from the University of NSW, said she wasn’t even thinking of the prize money when she entered the Kilgour. 

She and a friend had already chosen the work they expected to win the prize, she said. ‘‘I expected it to go to a contemporary artwork,’’ she said. ‘‘Mine is contemporary classical.’’

Thomas paints from her Balmain home, which she is renovating with her husband. She recently moved her work studio to the lounge room of the house. ‘‘It’s given me a whole new lease on life. I’m more comfortable,’’ she said.

‘‘The lounge room allows me to be more pensive. I like that. I like to have some deep thinking, some deep feeling, some space in time to evolve,’’ she said.

Her current projects are far from the winning portrait. ‘‘I’m quite interested in the oddities and absurdities of life,’’ she said. ‘‘I’’m bringing that out now. The work is unsettling. It is often ugly.’’

The Kilgour Prize show is on exhibit at Newcastle Art Gallery from now to February 7, 2016. 

GOT an eye for art? Cast your vote in the Kilgour Prize's People's Choice Award here.