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Audio description
The portrait is titled 3 Mordants. It was painted by Adam Cullen in 2011. The work is oil on canvas and measures approximately one-point-eight metres tall by one-point-eight metres wide.
The portrait is in bright, heightened pastel colours applied in broad brushstrokes with streaks of paint dripping down the canvas. The style is flat and simplified, the forms outlined in black. Three people are featured, from the waist up. Catriona and Simon Mordant, fair haired and grey haired respectively, side by side in the middle ground. Their dark-haired grownup son Angus’ face is popping up behind them in the centre of the composition. They all look towards us smiling broadly.
They stand as though bathed in a strong light. Angus’ forehead, the skin around all of their eyes, the smile-lines on all three cheeks and jaws and creases in fabrics are accentuated in whites and light grey as though the strength of the light trained on their features is washing away colour and detail.
On the left of the painting Catriona is shown with voluminous layered shoulder length, white-blond hair. The front sweeps up and over her forehead. Her skin glows with an orange tan. Bright green eyes look out through round-rimmed glasses. Her crimson lips are closed and smiling. Her small chin recedes into her neck, encircled in a bulky bright-pink scarf. Light from above catches on the scarf turning it a deep pink around her throat and a much lighter pale pink in the knotted folds on her chest. Beneath her scarf she wears a lilac top.
She stands shoulder to shoulder with her husband Simon. Immediately to the right, in the centre of the painting but behind Catriona, is her son Angus. He has short spiky dark hair. His face is round with tanned skin. Angus has dark defined eyebrows and light brown eyes. His lips are the same bright red as his mother and father’s, held in a big smile. His white teeth are showing and below his mouth is a double chin. Angus has a white collar above the suggestion of a black suit jacket.
Simon is on the right with his shoulder pressed against his wife’s and his head at a similar height to both Catriona and Angus’. He has thick silver-grey hair combed up and off his forehead. Simon’s round face has a similar orange glow to his family members’ with a slightly redder tinge. He has greying eyebrows and his light brown eyes are wide open, looking up and slightly to the left. Simon’s mouth smiles widely; his lips are full and curving revealing the top row of teeth. He has a large double chin accentuated in light grey against his orange tan. His neck is pale. Simon wears a vibrant orange top with a high open collar. Triangular orange shadows stand out under the large folds of his collar above his wide chest,
In the foreground are two cats. In the centre sits a smooth-coated white cat. Its face is almost in profile directed towards the right of the image. It has large pointy ears with pink sides, a sleek, fine-featured face and a prominent brow. Its eyes are downcast, whiskers splayed, mouth closed and drawn up into a slight curve.
On the far right of the painting is a dark red-brown cat with textured fur and pale highlighting. It is facing forward with large pointy ears. Its eyes are closed. Its forelegs extend towards its feline companion and the rest of its body is cropped by the right edge of the image.
Audio description script written and voiced by Lucinda Shawcross
The Gallery’s Acknowledgement of Country, and information on culturally sensitive and restricted content and the use of historic language in the collection can be found here.
Simon Mordant AM (b. 1959) is Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Greenhill & Co.,Inc, an independent investment banking and corporate advisory firm. Having trained as a chartered accountant in London, he began working in Australia in 1983 and in partnership in 1999 established his own business, Caliburn, which merged with Greenhill & Co.,Inc in 2010. A leading corporate advisor, Mordant is also a philanthropist with a substantial history of benefaction to the arts. In 2007, he was appointed Chairman of the MCA Foundation, re-established to raise funds for the $53 million redevelopment of the institution. He and his wife, Catriona (b. 1957) donated $15 million to the project, and the new wing of the MCA, which opened in 2012, is named after them. In 2010, Mordant was appointed Chairman of the Board of the MCA Australia. He is the Australian Commissioner for the Venice Biennale in 2013 and 2015. Among a number of public roles, Mordant is a Director of the ABC, the Sydney Theatre Company, and the Garvan Research Foundation; and a member of the International Councils of museums such as MOMA and Tate. In 2012, he was made an AM for services to the arts and the community. Catriona is also a member of the International Council of the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation and the Board of the Queensland Ballet. Simon and Catriona Mordant were awarded the Australia Business Arts Foundation's Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Leadership Award in 2010. Their son, Angus (b. 1991), is a photojournalist who graduated from RMIT in 2012.
The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.
