Mitch Cairns, Gerald Murnane, 2026, oil on linen, 79 × 69 × 5.5 cm, TCG023892
Shortlisted for the 2026 Archibald Prize
Beginning his career as a poet, Gerald Murnane was first published in 1974 and has since produced 14 books, including Border districts, for which he received the 2018 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction.
Earlier this year, Mitch Cairns travelled with his family to meet Murnane at the writer’s local golf club in the mid-west Victorian town of Goroke.
‘Alongside a small number of visual artists, Gerald Murnane’s writing continues to influence and sustain my art practice,’ says Cairns, a Sydney-based artist.
‘In his writing, the navigation of images – held in his mind – creates pattern recognition, sequence and meaning, accounting for what he calls “true fiction”. Like Murnane, I have learned to “trust my obsessions” and take comfort in my intuitive relationship to image-making.’
In this painting, Murnane appears to be looking through a window, with an expanse of grassy countryside behind him and a thin line of trees in the distance.
Earlier this year, Mitch Cairns travelled with his family to meet Murnane at the writer’s local golf club in the mid-west Victorian town of Goroke.
‘Alongside a small number of visual artists, Gerald Murnane’s writing continues to influence and sustain my art practice,’ says Cairns, a Sydney-based artist.
‘In his writing, the navigation of images – held in his mind – creates pattern recognition, sequence and meaning, accounting for what he calls “true fiction”. Like Murnane, I have learned to “trust my obsessions” and take comfort in my intuitive relationship to image-making.’
In this painting, Murnane appears to be looking through a window, with an expanse of grassy countryside behind him and a thin line of trees in the distance.