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inkjet print on paper (frame: 116.0 cm x 152.0 cm, image: 109.0 cm x 145.0 cm)
While she often photographs bodies, artist Narelle Autio rarely makes portraits. When approaching this commission, both artist and sitter – world champion cyclist Anna Meares OAM (b. 1983) – were relieved that neither wanted bicycles, Lycra or helmets to appear. As Meares put it 'the last thing I wanted was to have another picture to portray what I did as opposed to who I am'. Autio captured this image of Meares in low light at the end of a winter day they had spent working together at various locations around the Adelaide Hills – a creative process Autio described as exploring 'the landscape as a stage'. The portrait makes a symbolic association between Meares, who stands relatively small and almost spectral in the image, with the traits she is known for as an athlete – the strength and resilience of the tree which bends and prevails, and the enduring presence of the rock formation rising out of the landscape.
Meares was the first, and youngest, Australian female track cyclist to win an Olympic gold medal in Athens in 2004. Four years later, just seven months after she broke her neck and dislocated her shoulder at a World Cup meet in Los Angeles, Meares took silver in the sprint at the Beijing Olympics. The first Australian athlete to win four medals in four consecutive Olympic Games, Meares collected 18 gold, 16 silver and 10 bronze medals at Olympic, World and Commonwealth Games levels.
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The colour photograph depicts Anna Meares, champion track cyclist, as a small figure in a luminous white dress standing in a vast landscape against a huge late afternoon sky.
The top two thirds of the background are filled with a clear inky-blue sky, moving through shades of mauve and pink as it nears the lower third. The horizon line undulates gently with worn, sparsely grassed hills. On the left side sitting atop the tallest hill in the faraway distance is a solitary tree. The last of the day’s dying light falls over this hill from the right.
In the foreground there is scrubby grass and tussocks. In the centre two large granite rocks, the size of boulders, nestle on top of each other. Smaller rocks are clustered around and strewn to the right. Growing amongst the rocks on the right is a large, weathered casuarina tree. Its lower craggy trunk leans to the left, then bends dramatically, growing on the horizontal, another branch grows upward from the horizontal trunk into the sky. Spindly needle like leaves, wild and unkempt, spread upward and outward. A fallen branch hangs broken in half over the horizontal trunk. Lying along the ground is a dead log, thick, silver grey and sinuous. Light falls from the right on the granite rocks and the dead log, the rest of the foreground sits in deep shadow.
Anna is standing in front of the leaning trunk of the casuarina tree. She has long straight dark blonde hair, parted neatly off centre, which falls softly either side of her oval face, hanging over her shoulders. She has a high forehead, thin eyebrows and almond shaped eyes, a wide nose and full cheeks. Her mouth is closed. She looks directly out. Anna’s arms hang to her sides, her hands open, fingers resting downward. She is wearing a luminous layered lace ankle length white dress. It has a simple scooped neck, fitted bodice tied in the centre with a velvet pink ribbon and fitted three-quarter sleeves. The fabric gathers at the ribbon, hanging in folds to the top of her ankle high leather boots. The afternoon light falls from the right on Anna, illuminating her face and dress.
Audio description written and voiced by Marina Neilson
