The Percivals 2026 – Ron McBurnie, Percival Animal Portrait Prize Judge
Ron McBurnie, Percival Animal Portrait Prize Judge
Listen to Ron McBurnie as he offers his insight into why he chose Catherine Stwart’s Eye on the Weather portrait as this year’s Percival Animal Portrait Prize winner.
Transcript
Ron McBurnie:
The work I chose as the winning work for the pets prize, is this work here by Catherine Stewart. This is her daughter's dog, Nero, and in it you can see that Nero is wearing a yellow raincoat. He's just about to go out for a walk. Apparently, he's a very bossy dog and rules the house.
I like this work because it's beautifully painted. The marks that Catherine has put down relate to the form that she's painted.
She's got this really interesting thing happening between the red and the green, which are opposites. The tongue against the green, the table against the green. And the yellow, red against this slightly blue gray. So we're looking at two opposites in each of the parts of this painting and this crazy tongue of Nero's.
I think it's a beautifully painted work and well-deserving of the prize.