The Lester Prize returns to WA Museum Boola Bardip with White Gum Valley artist finalist Ross Potter

Ross Potter’s artwork prompting his selection as one of 40 finalists in The Lester Prize 2025 might be the smallest piece he has ever created, but the self-portrait certainly evokes a big and incredibly timely conversation. With the humble egg being at the forefront of skyrocketing supermarket prices and frequent limited availability, Potter has aptly captured his self-portrait, titled Cost Of Living, carefully drawn on an eggshell using watercolour and oil pencil. Having worked in the steel industry before pursuing a full-time career as an artist in 2012, the 44-year-old knows he is in the fortunate position of having bought a home in White Gum Valley where he and wife Ellen McCarthy try to make ends meet raising their two young sons. While understanding his own circumstances as an artist, his thoughts turned to how difficult it would be for new and emerging artists in the current economic environment. “I’m sort of wondering how young artists now are going to find their way into even having a family and the housing market because it’s going to be really difficult,” Potter explains. “Even though we were really broke in the first years of my art career, we always had food, but now just everything’s becoming so expensive. I’m not sure how anyone’s going to really maintain a good lifestyle and a career in the arts. I’m finding it quite difficult myself, even though, luckily, I’m in the housing market already and having ticked all those boxes.” Raised in Brisbane, the Kamilaroi man’s fandom of Fremantle musicians saw him stopover in the port city on his way to Europe in 2007, where he met McCarthy, cancelled his plane ticket and got a job in the steel industry he had worked much of his life. Drawing had always been a hobby, but he became more prolific when starting to capture the historic buildings in Fremantle and its surrounds. It led to an artistic practice working in pencil, but not always on paper, to create highly detailed artworks and usually large-scale representations of his subjects, including a life-size drawing of Perth Zoo’s beloved elephant Tricia for Fremantle Arts Centre’s 2018 exhibition Animaze: Amazing Animals for Kids. A previous finalist in the 2015 and 2017 Black Swan Portrait Prize — before the prestigious art prize was renamed The Lester Prize in 2019 to honour its leading patron, Richard Lester — Potter admits he is more comfortable with landscapes rather than portraiture. Staying home during a bout of family-wide influenza, unable to reach his studio to source paper, Potter’s idea to use an egg as his cost-of-living crisis canvas was not only an inspired one, its challenges proved a learning experience for his children as well. “It was a very experimental day where there were a few failed ones, so a couple of omelettes went down the drain,” he chuckles. “I was sort of letting them play with the other ones to see how far we could push it before they cracked, and it turns out you can’t push it too far. “At first, I wasn’t thinking and was just playing around and then as the drawing progressed, it was like, ‘Oh, this is actually working and going somewhere’. I sanded them back to get the surface the way I wanted it, then we dyed them black in watercolour paint. I realised I needed to keep it whole and intact for the pressure to draw this portrait on it, which took most of the day, and then there was the challenge of having to blow the egg yolk out later.” A fragile artwork also requires a visionary framer who has suspended Potter’s Cost Of Living in a black frame and acrylic cradle, providing the illusion of it floating in the middle. The Lester Prize 2025 main awards exhibition has returned to WA Museum Boola Bardip, featuring the works of 40 Australian artists chosen from a competitive field of more than 1000 submissions, the most since the organisation was founded in 2007. Potter is one of 17 returning finalists, 12 from WA, and says he is honoured to be selected among such a large number of entries. “Seeing how much more competitive it has become, it’s exciting to be a part of it again,” he adds, citing his passion for encouraging storytelling in any format. “When I was in it the first few times, it was still very competitive, but nowhere near these numbers. They’ve always looked after me. They’ve always had me come back for events, or they’ve had me for workshops; they keep you on the radar once you’re part of their alumni. So now to be in it again, it’s very exciting.” The Lester Prize 2025 is at WA Museum Boola Bardip until November 16. Potter will be conducting a workshop on October 11. Details for all artist workshops and this year’s winners at lesterprize.com.