Award-Winning Fine Art Portrait Artist

Marcus Callum

Winner of the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize and the Black Swan Portrait Prize, three times an Archibald Prize finalist, and a finalist on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, now painting in the UK.

Featured in

GQ Magazine, Vanity Fair, The World of Interiors and Tatler

The Green Man
Oil on aluminium panel

Portals of energy

Inspired by the timeless legacy of portraiture - masters like Rembrandt, Velázquez, Vermeer, and Ingres - I seek to capture the profound beauty and humanity in every subject I paint. Their ability to reveal the soul through light, texture, and expression guides my work, as I explore the stories, emotions, and memories that make life extraordinary.

Each piece I create is a tapestry of these influences, woven with my own passion for people, nature, and the quiet moments that define our lives. My goal is to bring vibrant, positive energy into the spaces my art calls home, offering not just a visual experience, but a connection to something deeper - something timeless.

Since I was a child, I've known that art has the power to affect the way we feel. It connects us to something deeper - something that resonates beyond the visual. When I create, I'm not just making a painting; I'm weaving light, emotion, and intention into every layer, infusing it with energy that shifts the mood of a room and elevates the spirit.

Painting is alchemy. Coloured oil paint in layers. Light hits each layer and comes back to the viewer at slightly different, imperceptible speeds, creating a vibrational energy. At some point the painting stops being a picture of someone - and instead it becomes the someone.

That is the part I can’t put my finger on: the moment the mud becomes a presence, and someone who was not in the room is in it again. The work is to stay with it until they are.

What the critics say

“Marcus Callum’s painting has an arresting luminosity that matches the sensitivity of the treatment of his subject. It’s a virtuosic demonstration of contemporary realist portrait painting.”

Dr Andrew Frost, Judge Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award 2018, Art Guide Australia

Marcus Callum has won the prestigious 2015 Black Swan Prize for Portraiture with his portrait of well known Australian artist Abdul Abdullah titled ‘Wrecking Ball’. Callum beat 39 other finalists to take out the $50,000 prize. The judging panel described “Wrecking Ball” as a compelling example of the possibilities of contemporary portraiture. "While the sitter is outwardly recognisable, at the same time the portrait gives a very strong sense of a resourceful inner life and the sense of flux that characterises selfhood. The artwork has been filtered and processed in a particularly inventive way. A very deliberate sense of perfected craft.
Nicholas Forrest, BLOUINARTINFO
Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Christopher Chapman, nominates Marcus Callum's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and works by Fiona Lowry, McCulloch and Zavros as strong works. These works convey a powerful sense of psychological insight.
Sydney Morning Herald, Archibald Prize
Marcus Callum is an exciting addition to Trinity College's significant art collection. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious Sir William Dobell Scholarship at Sydney's Julian Ashton Art School, and has since gone on to be a multiple finalist in the renowned national Archibald Prize in 2011, 2012 and 2013; an achievement that has assured his position as one of Australia's leading contemporary figurative realist artists.
Campbell Bearstow, Dean, Trinity College, University of Melbourne
I would also single out Marcus Callum's work... virtually as good as anything that might have come out from the Parisian Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the tutelage of David or Ingres.
Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, Charles Nodrum Gallery

Honours

2018
Winner
Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize
2015
Winner
Black Swan Portrait Prize
2011-13
Finalist, three years running
Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of NSW
2018
Finalist
Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, The Wallace Collection, London
2014
Dame Joan Sutherland Scholarship
New York Academy of Art

Curriculum vitae

Awards, exhibitions and training

Awards

2021: Finalist, Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art's International Biennial Portrait Competition, USA
2020: Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, USA
2020: Finalist, Lethbridge Art Award, Brisbane, QLD
2020: Longlisted, Aesthetica Art Prize, UK
2019: Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, USA
2018: Winner, Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize, Bega, NSW
2018: Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, NSW
2018: Finalist, Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, The Wallace Collection, London
2017: Semi-Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, NSW
2016: Finalist, Portrait Society of America's Members Only Commissioned Portrait Competition, USA
2016: Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, USA
2016: Valerie and Harry Cooper Portrait Award, New York

All 38 awards →

2016: Academy Scholar Award, New York Academy of Art
2016: Finalist, Mosman Art Prize, Sydney, NSW
2015: Winner, Black Swan Portrait Prize, Perth, WA
2015: Finalist, Mosman Art Prize, Sydney, NSW
2015: Academy Scholar Award, New York Academy of Art
2015: Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, USA
2014: Finalist, Eutick Memorial Still Life Prize, Coffs Harbour, NSW
2014: Finalist, Percival Portrait Prize, Townsville, QLD
2014: Dame Joan Sutherland Scholarship, New York
2013: Finalist, Mosman Art Prize, Sydney, NSW
2013: Finalist, Tatersalls Landscape Prize, Brisbane, QLD
2013: Finalist, Art Renewal Center International Salon, USA
2013: Finalist, Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of NSW
2013: Semi-Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, NSW
2012: Finalist, Alice Bale Prize, Melbourne, VIC
2012: Finalist, Black Swan Portrait Prize, Perth, WA
2012: Finalist, Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize, NSW
2012: Semi-Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, NSW
2012: Finalist, Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of NSW
2011: Finalist, Alice Bale Prize, Melbourne, VIC
2011: Finalist, Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of NSW
2010: Finalist, Alice Bale Prize, Melbourne, VIC
2010: Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, NSW
2010: Finalist ("Honourable Mention"), Shirley Hannan Portrait Prize, NSW
2009: Joshua Smith Prize for Drawing, Sydney, NSW
2009: Sir William Dobell Scholarship, Sydney, NSW

Exhibitions

2025: IWD (The Modern Female), 33 Contemporary, Chicago
2021: Iconic, Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, USA
2021: Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art's International Biennial Portrait Competition, USA
2020: Ethereal Epiphany, 33 Contemporary, Chicago
2020: Ad Art Show, The Oculus, World Trade Center, New York
2020: Looking Up Looking Forward, 33 Contemporary, Chicago
2020: Razor's Edge, 33 Contemporary, Chicago
2020: Lethbridge Art Award, Brisbane, QLD
2020: Light Correlations, 33 Contemporary, Chicago
2020: Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition, York Art Gallery, UK
2019: Accessible Art Fair, BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium
2018: Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize Exhibition, Bega, NSW

All 34 exhibitions →

2018: Doug Moran National Portrait Prize Exhibition, Sydney and national tour
2016: Justin Miller Art, Autumn Exhibition, Sydney, NSW
2016: Tribeca Ball, New York Academy of Art, New York
2015: Black Swan Portrait Prize Exhibition, Perth, WA
2015: Mosman Art Prize, Sydney, NSW
2015: Justin Miller Art, Winter Exhibition, Sydney, NSW
2014: Eutick Memorial Still Life Exhibition, Coffs Harbour, NSW
2014: Portrait Artists Australia, Embassy of Australia, Washington DC
2013: Tatersalls Landscape Prize Exhibition, Brisbane, QLD
2013: Mosman Art Prize, Sydney, NSW
2013: Archibald Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney and regional tour
2012: Alice Bale Prize Exhibition, Melbourne, VIC
2012: Black Swan Portrait Prize Exhibition, Perth, WA
2012: Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize Exhibition, Bega, NSW
2012: Archibald Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney and regional tour
2011: The Blake Prize Directors Cut Exhibition, Sydney, NSW
2011: Alice Bale Prize Exhibition, Melbourne, VIC
2011: Archibald Prize Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney and regional tour
2010: Alice Bale Prize Exhibition, Melbourne, VIC
2010: Doug Moran National Portrait Prize Exhibition, Sydney and national tour
2010: Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize Exhibition, Bega, NSW
2010: Julian Ashton Art School Student and Teachers Exhibition, Sydney, NSW

Selected Commissions

2019: Kenelm Storey, UK
2018: Lez Brotherston, Theatre Designer, UK
2016: University of Western Sydney
2013: Trinity College, University of Melbourne

Education

2015: New York Academy of Art, New York
2014: National Art School, Sydney, NSW
2014: New York Academy of Art, New York (Dame Joan Sutherland Scholarship)
2014: Art Students League, New York (Dame Joan Sutherland Scholarship)
2009: Diploma of Fine Art, Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney, NSW
2009: Sir William Dobell Scholarship, Julian Ashton Art School, Sydney, NSW
1990: Bachelor of Arts Honours, University of Southampton, UK

Projects

2015: Curator and co-Director, Project [504], Sydney, NSW

For everyone and everything I have ever lost, and am trying to find again.