Garry Shead Jacqueline McKenzie

A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Jacqueline McKenzie is rapidly establishing herself as one of our finest actors, playing in Australian films such as Romper stomper and Angel baby and the television series Stark.

It was McKenzie’s performance as Ophelia in a Neil Armfield production of Hamlet at the Belvoir Theatre and her role in Saint Joan with the Sydney Theatre Company that inspired Garry Shead to want to paint her.

Shead has depicted his subject as Ophelia '...when she appears from the darkness illuminated as if from within. Painting is all about light. If a painting does not emanate light, it is dead. I think of light as being the presence of a spiritual element, whatever you choose to call that – the life force, God. That is what painting is really about, revealing the deep divinity of life.’

Shead won the Archibald Prize in 1993 with his portrait of writer and publisher Tom Thompson.