The portrait both combines a statuesque almost devotional likeness of Maggie Beer with a spell-binding and dream-like personalised symbology of the sitter. In making the work Barton first asked Beer to provide a list of two of her favourite fruit and vegetables from each season. The eight chosen ingredients become pictorial elements woven around her. They signify her passions and personality in the same way the lives of the saints are decipherable through a language of objects in the history of art. These include peas, asparagus, peaches, quince, pomegranate and tomatoes. Beer holds her favourite flower – a yellow rose to her heart, a consciously romantic inclusion by the artist who described her impression that her sitter 'fills up a room with light and energy and generosity'. A pheasant looms large – significant as Beer's first Barossa Valley restaurant was renowned for serving locally sourced pheasant and her famous pheasant farm pate.
The portrait began with a single photographic sitting from which emerged a potent, imaginative and richly embellished portrait, worlds away from the artist's Sydney studio.
Commissioned with funds provided by Hayley Baillie and James Baillie 2023
© Del Kathryn Barton
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