I visited the beautiful TarraWarra Museum of Art last week to view the finalists in the Archibald Prize for 2012. I thought it was quite a varied field. There were fewer works that appealed to me than in previous years. However a few stood out, including:

1. The work of Jun Chen, titled ‘John Yu with artist‘. This is a masterful work painted from an unusual perspective, as if the viewer were lying on the operating table. The thick paint has been handled sensitively, to create a subtle impression, rather than the trend to huge palette knife swipes that require the work to be viewed at a distance.

2. The David Fairbairn work ‘Large head JB no.1 (with blue ground)‘. This was a powerful fluid work based on red and white line work.

3. The hyper realistic Juan Ford work ‘Ultrapilgrim‘, although I would have preferred the black plastic bin bag to have been hessian or some natural material (although perhaps Ford was making an observation about our throw away society).

4. The Nick Stathopoulos delicate portrait of Fenella Kernebone, titled ‘Art does belong. Portrait of Fenella Kernebone’.

5. The Kate Tucker dynamic portrait of Missy Higgins, titled ‘Melody (you’re the only one who saves me) – portrait of Missy Higgins’.