Meeting Room 1

Abstract

Members of the public are once again invited to sit for a portrait by Archibald Prize Finalist Tony Curran – but this time there's a catch. Curran is asking people to pose for a portrait in the company of a complete stranger. The artist will record the social dynamic of these impromptu pairings in a portrait drawn on the iPad, in hopes that the project will bring members of the community together who otherwise would never meet.

The artist says, "Previous drawing projects of mine have involved documenting the relationship between myself and the sitter, but this time I want to document the relationship between people brought into the strange situation of spending an hour with someone they don't know well or at all."

Sittings will be held one Saturday each month concluding in August 2016. Aspiring portrait subjects need to book online at www.tonycurran.net/meetingroom1 before their sitting, held at the conveniently named 'Meeting Room 1' in the Wagga Wagga City Council Civic Centre. There participants will meet their portrait partner and pose with them for their digital painting. After each sitting, portraits will be available for viewing and free download by the subjects.

Meeting Room 1, commissioned by the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, is the latest of Tony Curran's participatory drawing performances and the longest performance by the artist to date. Previous portrait drawing performances have taken place at the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Australia's National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of the Riverina in Wagga Wagga and Fraser Studios in Sydney.