Archibald Prize 2015: Newcastle artist Nigel Milsom wins prestigious award for Charles Waterstreet portrait

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A former armed robber's portrait of the barrister who inspired the ABC TV smash hit Rake has won this year's Archibald Prize.

Newcastle artist Nigel Milsom won the prestigious art prize for his portrait of barrister Charles Waterstreet.

The announcement was made at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.

Milsom grew up in Albury and his father knew Charles Waterstreet's parents.

The artist was represented by Mr Waterstreet — a prominent legal identity whose life was the inspiration for the ABC show — when the artist served time in jail for armed robbery, with the pair forming a close bond.

"At the time I was charged with armed robbery and he basically put his hand up and said that he'd help me, that he'd help sort out the mess that I found myself in and that's what he did," Milsom said.

In accepting the $100,000 award, one of the most significant Australian art prizes, Milsom described his subject as a great man but also an otherworldly figure.

In the oil on linen work, Waterstreet's hands are prominent, with Milsom saying he wanted to show the barrister reaching out and offering help because that was what he was to him — his hope of getting out of jail.

"I've tried to depict his otherworldly-type character," Milsom told ABC News.

"He's a complex person so I've had to try and exaggerate a lot of his physical features to capture his largeness."

The work took more than three years to paint and was described by the judges as a clear standout.

This was Milsom's third time as an Archibald finalist. He is a previous winner of the related Sulman Prize.

Milsom, whose birthday it was, had been painting for as long as he can remember. He described Mr Waterstreet as a diverse person.

"There are so many different facets to his life. He's interested in so many different things and he does seem to move and morph into one character to suit one thing and another thing to suit something else, depends on what he's working on at the time," he said.

"I've tried to show him as a person that's neither whole or solid or that's fixed because he doesn't appear to be that way in reality.

"He's become a good friend and at the time he became a real force of hope and that's how our relationship became stronger."

Shortly after Milsom won the Sulman prize and he fell into drugs and ended up robbing a convenience store.

"After that it was just disaster after disaster," Mr Waterstreet said.

"I think as a maturing artist it will be the world to him because it's recognition by peers and by the public that his gift is remarkable and that's what he should be doing in life, nothing else."

Mr Waterstreet said Milsom was expecting bad news about the portrait as he was getting a ribbing from one of the judges.

"It's just such an inspiration for me to watch Nigel flourish with his painting because he speaks with painting," he said.

This year, more than 40 per cent of the artists selected as finalists were new to the Archibald.

"The entries in the Archibald Prize this year have been very diverse — they've covered the whole circle of life," curator Anne Ryan said last week.

"[They ranged] from a young mother with her new baby, right through to some well-loved people in the art world who died this year."

This year's Sulman Prize went to Jason Phu for his piece I Was At Yum Cha When In Rolled The Three Severed Heads of Buddha: Fear, Malice and Death, while the Wynne Prize went to Natasha Bieniek for her work Biophilia.

"It's from my perspective as a Chinese-Australian, Buddha heads that I see are usually seen in gardens," Jason Phu said.

"My take on Buddhism is something that is very Chinese-Australian and not just peaceful so I decided to represent them as fear, malice and death."

The 2015 Archibald Packing Room Prize, a precursor to the main award, was last week awarded to French-born Sydney artist Bruno Jean Grasswill for his portrait of actor Michael Caton, best known for his role in Australian classic film The Castle.

The Packing Room Prize is given to the best entry in the Archibald Prize as judged by the gallery staff who receive, unpack and hang the entries.

Topics: visual-art, sydney-2000, newcastle-2300

First posted