“I’ve just come back from Nirvana,” Costa laughed, when asked about how it felt to win Australia’s most prestigious prize for portraiture.
“I was pretty excited when the painting was chosen for the last three finalists but to actually win the prize is just something else again!
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I could ever win the Archibald.”
Costa’s calming painting depicts Lee in a state of meditation.
Lee sat in meditation in the studio for six hours, with a break for lunch, while Costa painted.
The resulting picture emanates tranquillity in isolation.
Costa said that although not a Zen Buddhist himself, he was introduced to the idea of Zen in 1978 while studying with a Hungarian artist in The Rocks, in Sydney.
This mentor told him to unlearn the rules and limits which he had learned in art school; Costa had just finished studying at the Julian Ashton and Desiderius Orban Art School in Sydney.
From this point on, Costa’s artistic journey was influenced by the concept of Zen, which stands for absolute freedom at the level of heart and spirit.
He said that he is concerned with painting the “spiritual”: all the things we can’t see, which make up a human being.
Costa’s physical painting method is an interesting one; he uses his hands and fingers to dab and paint the work, avoiding brushes but often wearing surgical gloves.
He mixes the paint with a spatula but applies the paint with his fingers.
Costa wants the energy to travel from the heart to the canvas, rather than through the head, the brush and then the canvas.
It’s a technique which results in fluid, intuitive and deeply expressive works.
Costa said that this year “is the first time a painting which depicts someone with their eyes closed has won the Archibald”.
He thinks that fact may have contributed to his win, although he also pointed out that the judges may have been drawn to his work for its strong representation of multicultural Australian identity.
Lee is of Chinese descent, and was born in Brisbane to Chinese parents.
Costa himself is Italo-Australian, and was born in Sydney to Sicilian parents.
Described as a “sensual primitive”, the development of Costa’s “expressive” style began in 1986 while completing a Post Graduate Diploma at the City Art Institute, Sydney, now the University of New South Wales School of Art and Design.
Although Costa spent a year studying in Florence, he said that the biggest Italian impact on his work was a group of mosaics he encountered near Venice.
Located in the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, on the island of Torcello, the 11th- and 12th-century pieces are “some of the most exquisite mosaics you will ever see in your life”.
Costa insisted that their power can be surmised from three elements.
Firstly, the volume of the figures is implied but they are very flat works.
Secondly, there is an extraordinary spirituality which emanates from them.
And finally, the works have emotional content, which Costa believes is remarkable, since they are made of small chips of glass.
Costa concluded by emphasising that the goal of the artist is to “make visible the invisible”.
By following the rhythms on the canvas as he paints, he reveals and is constantly surprised by his work, just as he was surprised by winning the Archibald.
“The final goal of any Buddhism is to reach that state where there is no suffering or desire,” Costa explained.
“Often desire comes from wanting, and so a Taoist idea is to move away from all expectations because they cause suffering.
“To quote a very famous Dutch painter who said: ‘I live in a state of perpetual astonishment’.
“You can only be astonished if you’re not anticipating winning an art prize.”
