2010 Judges’ Statement

This year’s Blake Prize was awarded to Leonard Brown for his painting If you put your ear close, you’ll
hear it breathing.

In a world of sound bites, snappy one liners and attention grabbing images which hold our interest
for a nanosecond, Leonard Brown's beautiful and deeply contemplative painting appears strangely
out of place. An ordained priest and a deeply religious person, Leonard Brown has created a work
with an enormous spiritual presence, a work of outstanding visual intelligence and one with a
profound contemplative content. Although the standard in this year’s Blake Prize was exceptionally
high, as is testified to in the art of the selected finalists, the judges were unanimous in awarding the
prize to Leonard Brown and felt that his painting was quite exceptional. It draws on a lifetime of
spiritual experience and a virtuoso alla prima painting technique, where instead of building up layers
or glazes, the painting was completed while the surface is still wet – in a single inspired breath of
creation. It is a deeply lyrical work full of subtle variations, like a metaphorical tear drop or the quiet
weeping of the seraphims.

The John Coburn Emerging Artist Award went to Michelle Sakaris' Font, an imaginative and dramatic
work which through the manipulation of scale and angle of vision draws a parallel between a humble
eggcup and a baptismal font. It is a clever and imaginative work which operates on many levels of
association.

Works by artists Charles Butcher, Robert Dickerson, Monica Oppen, Rodney Pople and Olga Sankey
were highly commended by the judges.

-­‐ Andrew Bullen SJ, Maria Fernanda Cardoso and Prof Sasha Grishin AM, FAHA

The Blake Prize for Human Justice

Fiona White’s AGE 36 was awarded the Blake Prize for Human Justice. Here the human spirit is
captured in the stark face of injustice. It’s got guts. It’s like the artist has seized on a headline out of
a paper and then captured on canvas the same attention, grabbing message. We have here before
us the victim of police brutality enraptured, enlightened in death. There is a paradox that in this one
horrible electric flash there is an appalling apotheosis or moment of divine illumination.

-­‐ Paddy Crumlin National Secretary Maritime Union of Australia and Rev Dr Rod Pattenden
Chair Blake Society.