Veteran artist John Olsen said he felt compelled to speak out. Credit:Hugh Stewart While Cairns is considered a rising talent, a two-time Archibald finalist and winner of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship in 2012, Olsen admitted he knew nothing about his work. But he disputed comparisons of Cairns' painting - cited by Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand - to the modernist master Henri Matisse. "For Christ's sake, it's not Matisse," he said. "Matisse is to do with hugely sophisticated space. To even compare it to Matisse is totally absurd." Olsen, the subject of a Nicholas Harding portrait that was also a finalist this year, had no view on what should have won the Archibald.

Mitch Cairns, the winner of the 2017 Archibald Prize, his winning painting and its subject, his partner Agatha Gothe-Snape. Credit:Kate Geraghty But having won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting twice, he also had harsh words about this year's winner – Indigenous artist Betty Kuntiwa Pumani's Antara. It depicts the country of her mother, the late painter Kunmanara (Milatjari) Pumani, around remote Mimili in South Australia. Betty and her older sister Ngupulya, also a finalist in the Wynne Prize, are now custodians of the land. 2017 Wynne Prize winner Betty Kuntiwa Pumani with the painting ANTARA. Credit:AAP Through a translator, the Indigenous language-speaking Kuntiwa Pumani said the painting was inspired by her dreamtime, which included "our law, our culture, the land itself". And she was delighted to win the prize.

But Olsen questioned whether Antara was really a landscape painting. "If one considered paintings by [Elioth] Gruner or [Brett] Whiteley, there's a sense of place in it," he said, saying the winning painting existed in "a cloud cuckoo land". "Yes, it's dreaming but where is it?" he said. Speaking from his home near Bowral, Olsen said he felt compelled to speak out after the head of the Art Gallery of NSW's board of trustees, David Gonski, announced that Cairns had won the Archibald Prize, worth $100,000. Mr Gonski said the trustees had deliberated hard over two paintings – eventually highly commending Jun Chen's portrait of former gallery owner Ray Hughes.

The two were among 43 finalists in a year dominated by portraits and self-portraits of artists. "There were many great Archibald contenders this year but it was the skill and sensitivity of Mitch's portrait that left a significant impression on us all," Mr Gonski said. The gallery's curator of Australian art, Anne Ryan, said the "endearing intimacy" of Cairns' portrait would charm audiences. "There is a clarity to the collection of objects surrounding Agatha that highlights the domestic nature of the portrait, revealing tell-tale marks of the couple's home life," she said. A thrilled Cairns, who painted Gothe-Snape in their Balmain bedroom, said it was sometimes stressful painting of his partner of 10 years and mother of their two-year-old son Roland.

"You've got to continue making the painting when you've maybe had a bit of a row in the morning and you continue to paint the painting when you're deeply in love," he said. "The painting has to harness all of the complications that a relationship has but ultimately I loved painting this picture. I had a really good time painting it but it was very hard – probably the most challenging picture I've set for myself because you really just don't want to disappoint." Noting she loved that Cairns had given her a green nose, Gothe-Snape said she was never worried how the portrait would turn out. "I think I was a bit reckless," she said. "He's just so fully present in every moment so I had no worry that he would represent something of our relationship." Joan Ross won the Sulman Prize for subject or genre painting or mural with Oh History, You Lied To Me – a flouro work that showed what she described as history as an unfaithful lover.

"I'm very interested in bringing to light people's interest in re-looking at our history and what's happening in terms of the effect of colonisation on indigenous people," Ross said. She described her win as "really bloody great." Loading Last week, Peter Smeeth's portrait of Today show host Lisa Wilkinson won the $1500 Packing Room award. The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman winners and finalists are exhibited at the gallery until October 22.