The Portia Geach Memorial Award is an annual art prize for portraiture by women artists. The Award was established in the will of the late Florence Kate Geach in memory of her artist sister Portia Geach. Exhibition 16 September – 6 November 2022.
Fiona Lowry with Red Cushion acrylic on canvas 152 x 102cm
I first met Fiona when she was working behind the counter at my local art supply shop. At the time she was a student at Sydney College of the Arts. Her quiet and composed disposition intrigued me and I was drawn to her calm intelligence. I’ve followed her career as she has gone on to be a successful and highly regarded portrait and landscape painter. Often posing naked figures in the Australian bush, her air brushed, pale, monochromatic canvases have a mist-like quiet, a sense of calm belying something edgy, ominous and unsettling.
I’ve painted her seated in a diaphanous striped skirt and black velvet jacket, her eyes unflinching, hoping to capture the ambiguity of her presence. Fiona and has won several art prizes including the Archibald, Wynn and Doug Moran and is represented in the collections of state galleries of Australia.