Talking With Painters

There's the Archibald portraits but there’s also the other stuff; a painting of a home aquarium where a scuba diver is caught in the tentacles of an octopus, the cast of Seinfeld are looking for their car in that famous episode, Michael Jackson and Bubbles the chimp sit in a cloud while a jet skiier zooms along a lake below. There are also the stills from movies and TV shows from Jaws and Rambo to Magnum PI and the Dukes of Hazzard. Welcome to the wonderful world of Marc Etherington’s art. Etherington is a self-taught artist who took up painting when he was housebound one snowy winter in Canada 12 years ago. He's been selected as a finalist in the Archibald Prize for the last four years in a row and twice for the Sulman Prize. His portraits of artists Del Kathryn Barton, Ken Done and Paul Williams stopped me in my tracks in the Art Gallery of NSW and the story behind this year's self-portrait 'Me and Granny' reveals as much about his personality as his painting skill. His use of colour and composition comb