Rodney Fisher - Finalist in the Adam Portraiture Award
Rodney Fisher, known as the frontman of kiwi band Goodshirt, has been selected as a finalist in the Adam Portraiture Award. Fisher’s portrait work brings together techniques developed through his wider abstract painting practice.
“I’m honestly blown away to be selected,” says Fisher. “Seeing the other works made it feel even more special. The standard is incredible.”
Perhaps unknown to many, Fisher started his creative practice as a student at Elam Fine Arts School. Fisher put painting on hold as his success in the music industry exploded with Goodshirt, and later, his 2023 album Art School Dropout with Christchurch duo The Response.
The portrait is one of 43 works selected from 429 entries for the biennial finalist exhibition at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata in Wellington from May 21 to August 9.
Fisher says “I just wanted to have a go at doing a portrait by intentionally not obsessing with details. The more I worked it up and approached it without the pressure of it being good, I realised I could see myself in it and how I was feeling.”
During the time Fisher created the portrait, he had been battling health challenges that slowed his usual frenetic creative approaches.
“I was really thinking about light and how it’s a deer in the headlights kind of moment, like the when the camera flash captures you and feels like it’s distilling a moment.”
The portrait explores how scratched marks and hard-edged passages are used to imply focus and attention, while a shadow cast against the wall introduces the feeling of flash photography and a layered sense of depth. Loose watercolour elements sit against denser areas of mark-making, allowing gestures, stains, and fragments to remain visible within the final work.
Alongside the finalist portrait work, Fisher has developed a substantial exhibition-ready body of paintings spanning abstraction, and gesture-based work, which has become an increasingly important part of his day-to-day creative life. Fisher works from his home studio, painting alongside his guitar and his barber shears, always creating and making.
Renowned artist and one of Fisher’s friends, Otis Frizzell comments “Rodney Fisher? The guy from Goodshirt? Man, I loved Goodshirt. He’s a cool guy and a great musician. We’re mates after all these years, and I love that he’s painting now. He’s actually pretty good at that, too.”
Presented biennially by the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata and supported by the Adam Foundation, the Adam Portraiture Award continues to be one of the country’s most significant and long-standing art prizes. This year, the first prize has increased to $30,000, reinforcing the award’s role in supporting and elevating New Zealand artists.
The winner will be announced on Wednesday 20 May, with a $30,000 first prize awarded alongside a $2500 runner-up prize and a $2500 People’s Choice Award.
A selection of the works will be shown in the biennial finalist exhibition at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata in Wellington from May 21 to August 9, and then will tour nationwide to Te Atamira in Queenstown, Marlborough Art Gallery in Blenheim, MTG Hawke’s Bay, Percy Thomson Gallery in Stratford, and The Arts House Trust in Auckland.