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COFA PhD wins Archibald Citigroup Photographic Portrait Prize!

Article released: Friday, 24 March, 2006

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Vanila Netto - who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from COFA and is now currently doing a PhD  in the School of Media Arts in the area of Photomedia - has won the 2006 Archibald Citigroup Photographic Portrait Prize for her portrait The magnanimous beige wrap part 1 - (contraption).

This is the fourth year the acquisitive photographic prize has been awarded. Vanila receives a prize of $20,000

The subject of Vanila's portrait is Nicholas J McColl, who has a degree in Fine Arts and is an industrial designer working and lecturing in Melbourne.

"Nicholas to me is the contemporary embodiment of the work/live/play energy that once existed among the Russian constructivists of the pre-Stalin era," says Netto.

The winning portrait is part of a triptych. Part 2 is now on show at the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art.

Vanilla has been a finalist in the Photographic Portrait Prize in both 2003 and 2005 and was highly commended in the 2005 Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship. She had her first solo exhibition at the Sherman Galleries in Sydney in 2004 and has participated in numerous group shows including the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, 21st century modern and 2004: Australian culture now at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Her work is in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW and also held in national and international private collections.

Prize Judges Edmund Capon, Lindy Lee and Rosemary Laing said: "Vanila Netto's photograph is not a straight portrait in the traditional sense and we were intrigued by its interpretative and directorial qualities: a figure in space wrapped up in tape which twirls around the subject's body and mischievously out the top of the picture frame. It is also an exquisite print with beautiful subtle tones."