Evert Ploeg Deborah Mailman

Evert Ploeg lives in an old barn with exposed rafters between which he has put old wool bales. ‘I’d look at them every day and think, “When the right person comes along I’d like to paint on that”,’ says Ploeg.

It had to be somebody reasonably earthy and he wanted somebody absolutely Australian. Then he saw Aboriginal actor Deborah Mailman accepting her AFI Award for Best Actress in the film Radiance. ‘I watch the Golden Globes, all that film stuff because my girlfriend is in the film industry and I’ve never seen anyone accept an award like that,’ says Ploeg. ‘She looked completely blown away, really stoked. It was such a genuine response.’

Painting on the wool bale wasn’t that difficult, says Ploeg. ‘I’m into texture – the rougher the better. I like different surfaces. I painted Peter Morrissey (hung in the 1998 Salon des Refusés) on aluminium. I get off on the struggle of getting the paint to stick. The face is actually quite smooth – there’s lots of filler in that.’

Ploeg works both as an artist and a freelance illustrator for several leading advertising agencies and publishing companies. He caused quite a stir in 1997 when he submitted a portrait of Bananas in Pyjamas to the Archibald; the portrait of B1 and B2 was hung in the Salon des Refusés. This is the first time he has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize.

This work is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.