Australian artist Michael Zavros has won an Archibald Prize for his portrait of Australian-Jewish leader Alex Ryvchin, which he completed shortly after the Bondi Beach massacre.
More than 30 people were killed last year when Islamic State-linked gunmen opened fire on a seaside Chabad Chanukah celebration in Sydney.
Out of the tragedy, though, the two men resolved to use the artwork to depict the community’s resilience and the beauty of Jewish life, with award-winning results.
The Archibald Prize is Australia’s premier portrait competition and is run by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, carrying an annual cash prize of AU$100,000 (£52,100).
It also features a "people’s choice” category, with the winner awarded AU$5,000 (£2,600).
This year’s edition saw a record 45,769 votes cast, with Zavros claiming the people’s choice title.
Ryvchin, born in Ukraine, previously served as a spokesman for the Zionist Federation UK. He has published four books, and now serves as co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the country’s equivalent of the Board of Deputies.
Zavros remarked that Ryvchin is an “unmistakably and unashamedly Jewish” leader.
He noted that he was inspired to paint Ryvchin by his fearless leadership of Australia’s Jewish community, and the striking similarities the two men share appearance-wise.
The painting, titled Alex with his tefilin in the sea, depicts Ryvchin walking through the shallow waters of the beach, his wrapped tefilin visible under a short sleeved white T-shirt.
Zavros said: “A few years ago, my mother thought she saw me on TV, but it wasn’t, it was Alex
"As a natural leader, he spoke with clarity and conviction about the grief within his community and the changes he feared were emerging in our nation.
"I wanted to paint him in water, or the sea, which carries so much rich symbolism.”
"It’s something that binds Jewish people to thousands of years of custom, it binds us to our almighty, and for me personally, binds me to someone who was very dear to me, someone who I lost at Bondi,” added Ryvchin.
"Every time I would see him, without fail, we would do tefillin together and in the moments before he was killed … I’m sure at this moment he’s smiling at what he’s seeing.”
An added inspiration for the work was the fact that, several years ago, Zavros discovered that he has Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, alongside Greek and Irish, through a DNA test. The revelation surprised him and is a part of himself that he is taking his time to learn about.
He added: “It’s worth reminding ourselves how fortunate we are to live in this great Western liberal democracy that welcomed my family from Cyprus in the 1950s, and welcomed Alex who arrived from the Ukraine as a four-year-old refugee in the 1980s”.
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