Archibald Prize - Art Gallery of New South Wales

The room with the portraits was quite crowded, but funny to say people were just sort of hanging around near the works, apparently not even looking at them. Just sort of filling the room like someone had put in an order for 100 people to fill a room and they had turned up like movie extras.

This sore looking face is Dale Rhodes' 'Suzie', I quite liked the raw nakedness of the woman's face. It has a sort of painful caste but the woman also looks like she can hold her own, she might be exposed emotionally but she is not going to collapse.

Sarah satha's painting is sort of appealing, the strange black border around the figure of the man and possibly his son forming a kind of circle encompassing the two figures. Maybe it is protective. In any case the black border is out of synch with the beach scene, I mean beaches are usually where people go to be exposed. the border doing the opposite, enclosing.

Nick Stathopoulos' margaret Fink is arch and superior, perhaps she has a reason to be I have never met her though I have met her son. She is looking at the viewer just as the viewer is looking at her. Who will win this duel of stares.

Tresor Murace's amazing bright colourful and sort of energised portrait of a girl - or young woman - just leaps off the wall. It is commanding though not all that large. It has presence. The sort of Day-Glo colours resemble building site workers' clothes, the highlight nis all there in the hair. The hair?

The portrait of photographer William Yang is modestly orange. Presumably those are boxes of photographs on the shelves (Yang is a photographer). Another nice painting but this year's collection not equal to the Sulman, reviewed earlier this month on this blog.