Archibald Prize 2010

Sam Leach is known for his exquisitely rendered paintings that reference the techniques and motifs of 17th Dutch painting. Very often – as in this case – the work is small with labour-intensive detailing to encourage an intimate and individual encounter with the work. The painting is coated in resin, which forms reflective and protective barrier that isolates it from the world around it. At the same time, the reflection draws the viewer into the picture.

‘This work draws on 17th Dutch landscape paintings and the tradition of Baroque landscape painting, especially the way they created very idealised constructed landscapes,’ says Leach.

‘Historically, those paintings went on to inspire landscape gardeners to try to realise those idealised forms. I looked at that and thought about expanding that task and trying to arrange the entire universe with its stars and galaxies into neat geometric patterns. So I have extended the idea of constructing an idealised world into constructing an idealised universe.’

Leach is also the winner of this year’s Archibald prize. It is only the third time that an artist has won both the Archibald and the Wynne prizes in the same year, the first being William Dobell in 1948, while Brett Whitely won the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes in 1978.

Born in Adelaide in 1973 and based in Melbourne, Leach has a Bachelor of Arts, Honours (Painting) and a Master of Art (Fine Arts) from RMIT University. He won the Metro5 Art Award and the Fletcher Jones Prize in 2006 and the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award in 2007. He has had ten solo shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and has been represented in various group shows.