Fallible Podcast

The average pedestrian would never know that behind the dusty street corners, nostalgic terraces and anti-Westconnex signs of one quiet street in St Peters, Sydney, lies award-winning artist Wendy Sharpe’s studio. A simple note pinned to the door of her warehouse says, "Wendy Sharpe? Please ring lower bell." Those brave enough to ring enter a fantastic realm filled with gilt chandeliers, paintings, piles of clothes, scribbles, swatches, and an enormous table where Sharpe herself sits painting. Over a 35 year career, Sharpe has quietly developed a reputation for paintings and drawings filled with bold brushstrokes, vibrant colours and strong female characters. In 1986, she won the Sulman Prize: an eclectic award for subject and genre paintings. Ten years later, she took out its more famous sister prize, the Archibald, with Self Portrait as Diana of Erskineville, 1996. She’s been a war artist, a teacher and a humanitarian portrait-maker, creating works from a vast array of materials, hundreds of thousan