The magnanimous beige wrap - Part 1 (contraption)

'Nicholas and I became friends through his wife Nadja, with whom I shared an artist's studio in Surry Hills a few years ago,' says Netto. 'Nicholas to me is the contemporary embodiment of the work/live/play energy that once existed among the Russian constructivists of the pre-Stalin era. Nicholas is an "artist-constructor", whose life and work are an ongoing fusion of art with utility. Work-wear is what Nicholas wears most of the time. We both praise work and feel connected to the utopianism, which those Russian collectives of artists/designers once proposed - of creating a synthesis of art and life in which production was intended to serve its users/consumers for long and to the fullest.'

The portrait is part of a triptych. Part 2 was exhibited at the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and Part 3 is yet to be produced. The photograph was taken with a medium-format analogue camera and negative film, which was digitally printed.

Born in Brazil in 1963, Netto lives and works in Sydney. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW, and is currently completing a PhD there in the School of Media Arts/Photomedia. She has previously been a finalist in the Photographic Portrait Prize in 2003 and 2005 and was highly commended in the 2005 Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship. She had her first solo exhibition at the Sherman Galleries in Sydney in 2004 and has participated in numerous group shows including the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: '21st century modern' and 2004: 'Australian culture now' at the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2003-04 she undertook a residency at the Moya Dyring Studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris with a grant from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

This work won the Australian Photographic Portrait Prize in 2006 and was acquired by the Gallery in 2006.