Julius Killerby Paul Little

Paul Little is a well-known Australian businessman and the recently retired chairman of the Essendon Football Club.

‘I met Paul through a mutual friend,’ says Julius Killerby. ‘I have always been an Essendon supporter and jumped at the opportunity to paint his portrait. In the weeks preceding our sitting, I researched Paul’s career and came to respect him for his active work in philanthropy too, most notably through The Little Foundation.’

At the sitting, Killerby took photographs then sketched Little’s face. ‘He seemed to me to possess an unaffected, sincere disposition; the kind of man who would never smile for its own sake,’ says the artist. ‘I attempted to convey this through the application of rigid and impasto brush strokes, underlining his resoluteness. In addition, I cropped the composition tightly and heightened the contrast between the two sides of his face to intensify his gaze.’

Born in 1995, Killerby is a Melbourne-based artist working predominantly with photography and oil paint. His work is often characterised by a sinister psychological intensity. He is in his final year at the Victorian College of the Arts, completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. This is his first time in the Archibald Prize.