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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

Walking a fine line

Line drawing with Caroline Zilinsky

Streamed live at 10:30am (AEDT), Saturday 8th October 2022
Caroline Zilinsky. Video length: 2 hours 3 minutes

Darling Portrait Prize 2022 finalist Caroline Zilinsky takes a deep dive into drawing, focussing on the importance of line in creating a portrait. Concentrate on composition, discover the delights of incorporating ’mistakes’ and get creative with both these aspects of drawing from life. Then colour it up and see how the image transforms. Zilinsky delights in the abstracted image inkling towards a psychological interrogation.

Caroline Zilinsky is the most enigmatic of painters and possesses an eye that drills into the very soul of her sitters, revealing their most intimate truths. Portraiture is central to her art practice as she sees it as the ultimate interrogation of the human psyche.

Her work explores the grotesque, absurd and tragic aspects of human nature through narrative imagery. She echoes many of the themes of the Australian Modernism greats and stylistically, acknowledges a debt to their introspective investigations into an uncomfortable world.

Caroline Zilinsky was the winner of the 2020 Portia Geach Memorial Award—Australia's most prestigious art prize for portraiture by women. She is also a regular finalist in other premier art prizes including the Darling Portrait Prize (National Portrait Gallery), the Sulman Prize (Art Gallery of NSW), the SBS Portrait Prize, the Kilgour Prize (Newcastle Art Gallery), the Blake Prize for Religious Art (Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre) and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. Zilinsky lives and works in Sydney, Australia.

Some suggested materials to have prepared:

  • Heavyweight/good quality paper, 200 -300gm
  • Lead pencils, in the range of HB - 4B
  • Coloured pencils and/or pastels
  • Eraser and sharpener

Made possible with funds donated by Tim Fairfax AC

Video transcript

Related people

Caroline Zilinsky

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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

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