Two artists meet at a gallery, there's a connection which spawns a relationship and a child. And now there's also an Archibald win.
The Sydney-based artist Mitch Cairns had been a finalist in the Archibald on three previous occasions, but it was love that finally clinched it for him.
Cairns's unusual stylised portrait of his partner, fellow artist Gothe-Snape sitting cross-legged on the floor, beat 42 finalists to take home the coveted $100,000 portrait prize in Sydney on Friday.
"The act of making a portrait is a very, very difficult one," Cairns told AAP.
"In some ways it's much harder than some of the other work that I do. It's a great opportunity to paint somebody, it's a noble brief."
Over about five months, Cairns worked at capturing the beauty he saw in the couple's domestic life, as they raised their two-year-old son and navigated their existence as two working artists.
He tempered the hard lines of his contemporary, abstract style with the softness of Gothe-Snape's face, partly at the request of the subject herself, combining the textures and moods as seamlessly as possible.
"The one thing Agathe did mention throughout the painting she said 'make sure you paint me with soft eyes' and I think, when you're busy moving paint around and articulating crisper parts of the painting, in a way that was the real challenge of the painting," Cairns said.
Gothe-Snape's crossed legs work in tandem with the sharp angles of her elbows, jutted out to her sides, and the angular tilt of her head, while her facial features maintain a more delicate quality.
"Its not like it looks exactly like me, like a photograph, but it's emotional and psychological. It's more than a photograph. I think it's amazing painting can do that," Gothe-Snape said.
It's a peek inside the couple's life - even the placing of Gothe-Snape on the floor was a nod to their son. Cairns said it "echoed" the domesticity and the time spent playing with him, and helping him figure out the world from the ground up.
So where did this Archibald fairytale begin?
"Just at an art gallery, one night ... we just met," Gothe-Snape said.
The Wynne Prize of $50,000 for best landscape painting or figure sculpture, also awarded on Friday, went to Aboriginal artist Betty Kuntiwa Pumani from Antara in South Australia.
Sydney-based artist Joan Ross won the Sulman Prize of $40,000 for the best genre painting, subject painting or mural project.
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