Archibald Prize 2014: Fiona Lowry wins with portrait of architect Penelope Seidler

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Sydney artist Fiona Lowry has won this year's Archibald Prize with a portrait of architect Penelope Seidler.

The pale, mono-tonal portrait depicts Ms Seidler in a garden at her house on Sydney's upper north shore.

Lowry said she first spotted her subject at a gallery opening in Sydney about six years ago.

"I was really struck by her beauty and her presence," she told the crowd at this afternoon's announcement at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

"I asked a friend who she was and I decided then that I wanted to paint her."

Lowry said she felt it important to be able to take her subjects to places that have history and memory attached to them.

"So in this instance we went to Penelope's house, her iconic house in Killara, which she designed with her late husband Harry Seidler in the 1960s," she said.

"It's an incredible space architecturally but it's also a place that's full of their history and memory of their lives.

"We tried a few spots around the house to set the work but we ended up climbing down to the gully at the back of the house where there's a small waterfall and it's an incredible view of the house because it sort of towers over the top of you.

"There was a moment when Penelope glanced back at the house and reflected that she hadn't been down there for a very long time and it was that moment that I wanted to capture with this work."

The painting was one of 884 entries including 54 finalists vying for the prestigious $75,000 award.

Michael Johnson took out the Wynne Prize, awarded for landscape art, with Oceania high low.

The work is described as a homage to the origin myths of Oceania, including the Maori legend of the sky and earth being separated to admit the light of day.

Andrew Sullivan won the Sir John Sulman Prize, for the best subject painting, with a picture of a detached dinosaur head titled T-rex (tyrant lizard king).

Sullivan said the painting was part of a larger body of work, Survey into the Cretaceous, which involved research into human consciousness and its relation to evolution.

Topics: painting, library-museum-and-gallery, awards-and-prizes, sydney-2000

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