🎨 EXCLUSIVE CHAT: Luke McGregor

Luke McGregor joins Jonesy & Amanda ahead of the second season of ABC's Portrait Artist of the Year.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gold. It's Jonesy demanded driving you home.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Luke McGregor is back on our screens as co host
of one of my absolutely favorite shows, which is Portrait
Artist of the Year Australia. I was lucky enough to
be painted by a young woman called Jennet Pickering last year.
It's an what a gift of an experience that is,
and some of the country's most talented artists, amateur artists
are stepping up again to paint a whole lot of

(00:24):
Australian faces. And Luke, of course is at the Helm. Hello, Luke, Hawaii, very.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Great, good, thank you the agenda. Pickering is incredible. She
does amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Work, she does and she painted me. She's from the
Pilboro region. She painted me on a block of wood
that she'd brought down from the Pilbor I've got it
at home. What a fabulous thing. It's such an interesting
experience because I've watched the English series for years and
I watched the Australian one two obviously, but it's you
can see the gift in what the artist is doing,

(00:57):
but it's so weird for yourself to see how three
artists see you.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yes, and then having to decide which one you want
to pick in front of the three artists is brutal
and something that I'm glad I don't have to go through.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
So true, so true, So you The way it works is,
as the person who's been sitting for the portrait, you
choose which of the three you want. But that's not
necessarily the artist that goes through to the semis, because
then the judges decide.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's such a it feels like such a wholesome show,
but there is no way to get away from the
the slight like I don't know, I feel so bad
that like it's still a competition. It's I mean, the hope,
I guess is that the artist get to be in
front of these judges and it helps their career moving forward.
But it is, yeah, it's I can't imagine how this

(01:47):
is for the guests too. I think our record for
longest time taking to decide is John Saffron. He I
didn't think he was going to pick. I thought he
was just going to grab all three and run away.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Right, Because there's any artist been upset that they've been
excluded from it.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Not yet, but you know, there's always the hope with
a reality show that one day they just like break
the easel over the guests head.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the show. And then
with Amanda's one, the lady, she used a bit of thrift,
she used recycled a bit of woods.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, lots of people do. She painted on wood, but
other people painted all kinds of things, Luke, don't they.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, we had this season we had someone on aluminium,
which was really hard because you've got to give it
a certain amount of time to drive before you can
apply the next layer. We had another lady who was
just setting fire to wood, just burning wood, which again
is not something you can rush. But yeah, we've had

(02:47):
people use coffee grounds and they used coffee grounds of
water to and they put more or less into dilute
the beans to get a different shade of brown. They
had the best smelling painting by far. Yeah. It's one
of those things where I was thinking of art as
like an easel and you need space and you need
money and you need a setup, whereas people, yeah, people,

(03:12):
I mean one guy used masking tape and create an
amazing portrait out of just black tape.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So you never know, Wow, has anyone ever painted using
other parts of their body.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh, we haven't had any. Glenn Robbins doing a penis
painting has not. That's where I was heading, Luke, but
it's it's I'm like fingers crossed fingers. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Portrait Artists of the Year returns this Sunday at seventy
thirty on ABC TV.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
And I View.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
It's a wonderful Thank you, Luke McGregor, thanks for joining us,
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.