Where can you find cricketer Mitchell Johnson dressed in skimpy clothes and swinging on a cricket ‘wrecking ball’ (at right), Australian businessman and politician Clive Palmer looking very much like a pug and a dinosaur, Tina Arena dressed like Jessica Rabbit, former PM Julia Gillard with serpents sprouting Medusa-like from her head, ABC Gardening Australia presenter Costa Georgiadis as a garden gnome, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott and federal education minister, Christopher Pyne, sitting very comfortably on Cardinal George Pell’s lap?

Why, at the Bald Archy Prize 2014 exhibition, of course!

These, and many other cheeky and irreverent portraits of well known Australians, are currently on display at the Watson Arts Centre…but only until Sunday!

Created by Peter Batey, the Bald Archy Prize is a spoof of the more serious Archibald Prize and is the only art competition in the world to be judged by a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Maude.

The Bald Archy Prize turns 21 in 2014. It has become an icon on the Australian art calendar, and we are very lucky to have this year’s entries on display here in Canberra before they begin touring elsewhere around eastern Australia. The exhibition closes this Sunday 2 March, so get there by Sunday to see the 2014 winning entry – Wrecking Balls (Ashes to ashes) by Judy Nadin – and other wonderfully comic portraits.

the essentials

What: The Bald Archy Prize 2014
When: Open daily 10am-4pm until Sunday 2 March
Where: Watson Arts Centre, 1 Aspinall Street, Watson
Telephone: 02 6241 1670
Web:www.canberrapotters.com.au
Tickets: Adults $5,  Concession $4