If you want to beat a strongman you can’t do it with strength. You’re likely to be pulverised. Instead you need to outwit him (say, a rubik's cube for example).
This brings us tantalisingly close to to our next and quite possibly most underestimated principle of ‘How to win the Archibald Prize’: don’t try to outdo a renaissance master with oils, you’ll fail. Instead use your distinctiveness.
Picasso did it with cubes, Damien Hirst did it with formaldehyde and a tigershark and Tracey Emin did it with an unmade bed.
In my case that might be:
- simple black ink lines
- vibrant colours
- words
- unnoticed people or things
- perhaps in a city
In such a contest I might stand a fighting chance.
This principle, combined with the previously discussed importance of standing out amongst the rows and rows of canvases, might just be my secret weapon. Or foolish. After all, who ever heard of simple line drawings, vibrant colours and words winning the Archibald? Preposterous. The same might have been said about William Dobell in 1943...
Next is a little matter often overlooked.