Tim Storrier is an Australian artist who won the 2017 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize with The Lunar Savant, a portrait of fellow artist McLean Edwards.
His win in the 2012 Archibald Prize with a ‘faceless’ self-portrait entitled The Histrionic Wayfarer (after Bosch), proved a controversial choice by the judges. Storrier notes in the accompanying Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) “It refers to a painting by Hieronymus Bosch called The Wayfarer painted in c. 1510 where the figure is believed to be choosing a path or possibly the prodigal son returning,” says Storrier. “It also has other references, I believe, but they are rather clouded in biblical history and time… A carapace of burden is depicted in The histrionic wayfarer, clothed in the tools to sustain the intrigue of a metaphysical survey. Provisions, art materials, books, papers, bedding, compass and maps, all for the journey through the landscape of the artist’s mind, accompanied by Smudge [the dog], the critic and guide of the whole enterprise.”
The AGNSW text also notes “Though there is no face to identify him, Storrier believes that identity is made clear by the clothes and equipment carried. Storrier has included a drawing of himself in the painting, scribbled on a piece of paper being blown away by the wind”. Storrier’s Wayfarer is one of his later career figurative subjects and other examples can be seen in his In Absentia series.
