Hannaford & Big hART

02 July – 29 August

Tuesdays–Thursdays, 10am-3pm
Watershed, Wynyard

An exhibition celebrating the 28 year creative partnership between Australia’s most prolific portrait artist and renowned social change and arts company, Big hART.

A collection of dynamic and moving realist portraits painted on stage, in rehearsals, in homes, at workplaces and on country by Alf Hannaford to celebrate and elevate the extraordinary people at the centre of Big hART’s work.

Big hART uses portraiture in its projects as it’s a time honoured way to bestow respect. Having a portrait artist of Hannaford’s virtuosity paint people from Australia’s most marginalised and hidden communities sends the message that their lives are just as important as the politicians he is known for painting.

Portraits include members of Albert Namatjira’s family; Pitjantjatjara actor Trevor Jamieson; Aboriginal young people and Elders from the Pilbara; TAS Seafarers from the Blue Angel project; housing commission residents from Northcott in Sydney and young people from the West Coast of Tasmania and some NW TAS Coast scenery.

Robert ‘Alf’ Hannaford is a South Australian Artist who currently lives near Riverton SA with his wife, artist Alison Mitchell. Hannaford was the political cartoonist for the Adelaide Advertiser from 1964 to 1967 but is best known for his realist oil portraiture of well-known subjects like Dame Joan Sutherland, Donald Bradman, Paul Keating, and Bob Hawke. He has won the Doug Moran Portrait Prize and has been selected as a finalist in the Archibald Prize an astounding 27 times, winning the People’s Choice Award 3 times.

Entry to the exhibiton is free, but donations to Big hART are very welcome.