Mathew Lynn Lucinda Moon

Mathew Lynn was a runner-up in last year’s Archibald Prize with his portrait of artist Guan Wei. In 1997 he was a runner-up and winner of the People’s Choice award with a portrait of Jeanne Ryckmans. He was also selected for the Wynne Prize in 1993 and the Archibald Prize in 1989.

For this 1999 Archibald portrait, Lynn chose one of his favourite musicians, the baroque violinist Lucinda Moon, who is based in Adelaide. Moon is the concertmaster of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and principal violinist of the Melbourne-based Elysium Ensemble. Having received a travelling scholarship, she studied baroque violin in The Hague with Sigiswald Kuijken, graduating in 1995. She has won prizes in Europe and tours there with another ensemble, The Musicke Roome.

Moon is regarded as one of the foremost violinists for baroque repertoire in Australia and especially enjoys playing the music of Bach and Heinrich Biber, whose works for the violin are known for their great beauty and demanding virtuosity. Lynn describes music as one of his great passions, as he is himself a lapsed percussionist. “Lucinda is the most wonderfully supple and delicate player. The music seems to travel through her whole body, following its own natural momentum. As she plays you can see this in those loose gymnast’s arms and shoulders of hers! She can leave you with a feather-like, floating sensation.”

The artist wanted to convey her delicacy and the strong bodily awareness with which she expresses her music, but he also wanted to combine this with elements of her character. “Lucinda is also a very clear-headed and determined person and it’s the way she balances all these qualities that makes her so compelling an artist to me. She has a rather creaturely, other-worldly quality and I wanted to give her a rather dramatic air, like one of those fabulous heroines from the Greek classics.”