Bio
Kerrie Lester (Australian 1953–2016)
Kerrie was born to John Lester and Dolores Metcalfe in Surry Hills Sydney, She studied fine arts at the National Art School and the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education between 1971-1975.
She held her first solo exhibition in 1976 and has had 31 solo shows and exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, at the Australian embassy in Paris, in the Biennale of Sydney plus the Mosman Art Prize, which she won in 2011.
Her bold and distinctive portraits, in which the outlines of the sitters are hand-stitched, Lester has produced distinctive stitched-canvas paintings, ceramic sculptures, collages and prints in a range of subjects. But she is possibly best known for her portraits, notably those for the Archibald Prize and the Portia Geach award, and those in Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery, she figured in the Portia Geach Memorial Award shortlist nine times.
Her sitters including Phillip Noyce, Judy Cassab, Jeffrey Smart, Fred Hollows, Akira Isogawa, Jimmy Barnes, Cathy Freeman, Margaret Fink and Trent Nathan. Her Self-portrait as a bridesmaid took out the Archibald’s Packing Room Prize in 1998. Lester’s first entry for the Archibald was in 1988 and she entered Archibald Prize sixteen times but never won, She even entered a self portrait in 1998 depicting herself as a bridesmaid but never the bride, Titled Self-portrait as a bridesmaid, this was to represent her frustration as being a finalist only, she has even been quoted “I’ve pretty much done everything I wanted to do but I certainly would like more time to do more. The only thing is I wish I’d won the bloody Archibald”.
Although she never won she gained an enormous amount of respect in the Australian art scene, with here works being acquired by numerous galleries such as National Portrait Gallery, Australian Galleries and the Art Gallery Of NSW, Etc.
She Continued to paint till here death in 2016 from leukemia.
