Portraits: Identity, Celebrity, Empathy

Portraits are highly inventive examples of the identity building that is so prominent in our current social media and public space. At times this morphs into the creation of celebrity, heightening the individual’s presence and influence. Yet the impact of portraits can go beyond the glamour of such performances to increase the viewer’s empathy with the subject and expand our perception of human experience.

Join Dr Vivien Gaston for a talk that will explore the evolving roles of portraits over times of dynamic social change, both in the past and today.

Dr Vivien Gaston is an artist, writer and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She has taught as lecturer and research supervisor at the University of Melbourne, Monash University and RMIT. In 2014-17 she was ARC Senior Research Associate working on British and Australian portraits, 1700-1900, in the National Gallery of Victoria. She has published numerous essays and reviews, and curated four major exhibitions, including The Naked Face: self-portraits, NGV, 2010-11. She was a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, 2022, and the Rick Amor Drawing Prize, 2024, and held an exhibition Waterfalls in 2024. She is also curating the forthcoming exhibition Platypus: defiant enigma for Hamilton Gallery.