Warner portrait wins national award

He's got a World Cup winner's medal, an Allan Border Medal, he's won the Ashes and holds all sorts of batting records. He’s even been crowned ‘Sports Dad of the Year’. And now David Warner can add a leading art prize to his overflowing trophy cabinet.

The Australia opener is the subject of the 2017 Bald Archy winner, a popular portrait competition for Australian artists, with an emphasis on the irreverent.

The artist is Maitland painter James Brennan, a now three-time winner of the prize.

"I just love the way he plays his cricket. The way he bats, the way he fields. He's aggressive, entertaining," Brennan said.

"He can make a quick hundred before lunch.

"It's great to see a gallery with a bit of laughter, a snicker, a guffaw. Most galleries are probably the opposite to that."

The Bald Archy began in 1994 as a spoof of the long-running Archibald prize. It has since grown into a highly sought-after art prize in its own right, with a $10,000 prize for the winner. The Bald Archy showcases the best in caricature and humour artwork. It is judged by a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Maude.  

Warner is only the third cricketer to be immortalised as a Bald Archy winner. Mitchell Johnson was the subject of the 2014 winner with a Miley Cyrus-inspired 'Wrecking Ball' take on the fast bowler's Ashes demolition job, while a less flattering portrait of Shane Warne that focused more on his off-field life than cricket exploits won in 1998.

Brennan's previous winning entries were a portrait of the Danish Royal Family in their underwear (2008), and a legendary horse trainer Bart Cummins (2009).

For 2017, he chose Warner, and captured the Australia vice-captain in the midst of a full-blooded square cut to the boundary in an entry titled "Pocket Rocket".

"I chose Dave because I'm a huge fan of the way he plays cricket and I love watching him come out to open for Australia and put a big score on quickly," Brennan told cricket.com.au

"Aggressive and entertaining in his batting and fielding I was hoping to capture that in my caricature of him.

"He also has a pretty distinctive face and I saw that as a great challenge as well to portray that accurately but with a fair bit of exaggeration and humour as well.

"He had an amazing summer of cricket in Australia which captured my imagination and I think every cricket fan's imagination and that sparked the initial idea of doing a painting of Dave Warner.

"My painting is a celebration of the most explosive batsman in the world with a tiny dig at his vertically challenged stature, this little Bantam Rooster has the heart of a lion!"

The painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 121.8cm X 91.4cm.