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FROM TALKING HEADS TO PAINTED HEADS
What do Kerry O’Brien, Madonna King and George Negus have in common?
Their portraits along with other members of the media will be featured in the upcoming Nyst Gallery exhibition, “The Fourth Estate” an exhibition to be opened by Gold Coast Publications Managing Director, Steve Howard.
Queensland media luminary Bob Gordon hatched the idea over lunch with prominent Gold Coast lawyers and gallery owners, Chris Nyst and Jason Murakami.
The trio were inspired by the words of the 18th Century British politician Edmund Burke, credited with coining the term “The Fourth Estate”. Burke, when looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, stated: “Yonder sits the Fourth Estate and they are more important than them all.”
As Jason Murakami explains, “Chris, Bob and I were also interested in the notion that portraits and the press have a unique relationship in Australian history. J.F. Archibald, then editor of The Bulletin, commissioned Longstaff to paint Henry Lawson. So the story goes, Archibald was so pleased with the portrait, he was moved to make a bequest to the arts. Today we know it as “The Archibald”, arguably Australia’s most well known and loved art prize.
“The Fourth Estate”, is the second themed art event presented by Nyst Gallery and Lorraine Pilgrim this year, following the highly successful and thought provoking exhibition “Innocence? Capturing the Wrongfully Convicted”. That exhibition also drew attention to the work of the Griffith University Innocence Project and its lobbying of the Queensland Attorney General to develop a legislative framework for the retesting of DNA evidence post conviction.
As Jason Murakami and Lorraine Pilgrim concur, “Our shared vision is supporting visual art, nurturing pictorial story tellers and fostering the creation of bold ideas. So far our foray into themed collaborative exhibitions has exceeded our humble expectations”. “Innocence? Capturing the Wrongfully Convicted” has since been invited to exhibit at the first major World Innocence Conference to be held in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 2011. | 
