India Mark Day at the gallery with Dane Taylor

Dane Taylor is the lead singer of the experimental pop band Shining Bird from Austinmer, NSW. They released their debut album Leisure coast in 2013, and in 2015 their single Rivermouth was awarded ‘song of the year’ at the FBi Radio SMAC Awards. Their unique sound embodies the various hues of the Australian landscape, from the outback to the coast, with a tender nostalgia for music of bygone eras.

‘Outside of Shining Bird, Dane is an artist in his own right, and his calm and grounded nature is something I have always admired,’ says India Mark.

‘I wanted to paint Dane as simply as possible, almost as a silhouette, with a strong focus on his most distinctive features: his eyes, eyebrows and beard. The “painting within a painting” is a symbolic motif used by 17th-century Dutch masters to imply elements of narrative that aren’t surface apparent, such as a state of mind, character or emotional situation. The painting behind Dane is a loose appropriation of Rupert Bunny’s Sea idyll and is an ode to figurative classicism in Australian art history.’

Mark was born in Gerringong, NSW, in 1993 and lives in Thirroul. She is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts at the National Art School (NAS). In 2015, two of her paintings were acquired by the NAS archival collection. This is her first time in the Archibald Prize.