The first time I met Anh Do was at the MCA in Sydney. He just came up and introduced himself. Within five minutes I felt like he was my best friend. He's that kind of guy. In fact, the most noticeable thing about Anh Do is his disarming personality. He smiles a lot, he speaks from the heart and he doesn't self-promote.
And so it is when we catch up in Sydney as he's preparing for his new show. He talks freely about the men he's painted, his own shortcomings, his kids, his daily routine (drop off the kids at school, paint, pick up the kids).
Olsen Irwin Gallery director Rex Irwin playfully describes Anh as “Mr Not-Good-Enough”. When the Paddington Gallery decided to work with Anh about 18 months ago, his initial feedback to the artist was that the painting he saw was not quite ready for exhibition. Little did he know that Mr Not-Good-Enough would take the comment literally. He went home and destroyed the canvas. Such is the hunger for artistic excellence in this 37-year-old who came to Australia as a refugee when he was a young child.
"The most noticeable thing about Anh Do is his disarming personality. He smiles a lot, he speaks from the heart and he doesn't self-promote."
His first solo exhibition is called Man. The works - and there are just eight in all - are powerful portraits. Almost all the subjects look directly at the viewer, intensity apparent in their eyes and sharp lines defining their faces. The impasto technique, reminiscent of Nicholas Harding and perhaps even Ben Quilty, lends itself to this overload of emotion. It's no coincidence that the paintings speak of lives the tough way. The subjects, Anh tells me, were chosen because they had experienced things they were proud of, and things they were not so proud of. Just like me, he adds.
One is a struggling artist he met on the roadside in Italy. Another is a fellow he befriended down Wollongong way who trades in odds and ends. An older man with a plaited beard was a fellow art student and the man who stares intently through a pair of thickly framed spectacles was his former Tafe teacher.
It's astonishing to sum up all that Anh Do has achieved in his short life. He's a trained lawyer but rose to fame as a comedian. He also starred in Footy Legends, a movie made by his director brother, Khoa Do. On the side, he's written a memoir, The Happiest Refugee, which won the Book Industry Award for Book of the Year. And for good measure, got to the finals of Dancing with the Stars.
But his abiding passion since childhood is art. His talent has taken him to the finals of the Archibald Prize (a portrait of his previously estranged father) and now this: his first solo exhibition.
As I walk through the gallery amidst the presence of these intense subjects, I can't help but wonder what's next for the man who seems to know no boundaries.
'Man' will be showing at Olsen Irwin in Woollahra from April 22-May 10.
Anh Do's portrait of his father. (AAP)
