Charles Mouyat
Under the surface
Charles Mouyat is busy preparing his studio for his next Archibald submission. For the two-time finalist, it will mark his eighth submission for Australia’s most competitive painting sport.
Writer: Daniel Press
Charles Mouyat
HE was still arranging his lighting setup when the sitter arrived early.
He hurriedly greeted renowned painter Nick Stathopoulos at the door, a contender in the prize circuit himself. What followed was a game of musical chairs as the sitter eased out of his usual role of painter to let Charles direct the pose. Dancing around his crowded studio, Charles had to overcome his pre-painting nerves. “The privilege of painting him was a huge challenge because I hold him in the highest regard”, he explained.
Nick Strathopolous
Twisting the side key light, Charles illuminated Nick’s grey whiskers in neon pink. His looming pose and crossed arms gave a monumental weight, matched by his bespectacled stare. Even after the sitter left, Charles felt his ghostly presence watching the painting progress. Charles has welcomed politicians, astronauts, physicists, and rock stars into his studio, but no sitter exposes you more than a master painter. A craftsman of Nick’s calibre knows all the tricks, as every scumbled stroke and glazed layer can be immediately dissected. The pressure-cooker result, Charles describes, “is undoubtedly the best portrait I have ever painted, but the Archies being the Archies, all confidence in my submission does not warrant success”.
Charles reflected on his artistic journey as he awaited the results. Back in 1986, at age 19, his paintings made him a minor celebrity in the halls of Meadowbank TAFE. He had made an artistic breakthrough with a self-portrait of his head barely floating above the surface of a still sea illuminated by a waning crescent moon. There was an ominous undertone, too, with the engulfing water resembling the silver sheen of mercury. Charles goes on, “I have been thinking about recreating this piece and doing it justice, having experienced so much catastrophe and joy since that tender young age”.
Stars in her eyes – Dr Meganne Christian
After growing up on a working-class acreage in semi-rural Dural, it was important that his burgeoning talent paid as he had initially aspired to become a commercial art director. “There was supposed to be money and security in the life of an ad man”, he explained. Charles then became an early adopter of digital tools as a reality-bending photo retoucher. However, despite numerous awards, he felt his greatest work was invisible in plain sight. Craving substance, he preternaturally drifted towards the life of an artist. “Being a perennial outsider and feeling utterly forlorn with my stalled design career around the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, I decided to embrace my inner freak and enrolled at the College of Fine Arts (CoFA) to study my Master’s in 2011”.
Dr Michelle Simmons
Vince Sorrenti
Self Portrait
Ian Moss
Matt Kean
Charles was primed for action and founded the Life Drawing Society at CoFA in 2014. He details, “I just wanted to draw, and with life drawing being virtually unavailable to students at our prestigious learning institution, I simply started a fire that needed lighting”. I joined the club a year later, where I met Charles, and was blown away by the technical finesse of his figures. Life drawing is a performance-based pursuit, much like a workout, where one trains one’s skillset in compressed timeframes. Certainly, these sketches honed his craft for future portraits.
His first submission to the Archibald was in 2015 in his late forties with the rationale that “the Archibald is the biggest game in town and the only way I could conceive of raising my profile so late in life”. Year after year, he portrayed the sincere humanity of his subjects, until he was finally hung in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2020 for his striking painting of politician Matt Kean, cheekily dressed in quicksilver and grasping a flaming waratah. He became a finalist again in 2023, with his much-buzzed portrait of Professor Michelle Simmons.
Charles’ refined talent and tenacious spirit have kept him going amid the highs and lows of a rich creative life, and he feels his best work is ahead of him. I asked him what was next, and he replied, “My first solo show and to make a living as an authentic aesthete and painter of wanderlust”.
